Thread: Cockroach-eating contest -- Would YOU ?

Cockroach-eating contest bugs U.S. animal group[/i]
Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:33pm ET[/i]

TORONTO (Reuters) - An animal rights group called on Tuesday for a North American theme park operator to cancel a competition in which people will try to break the world cockroach-eating record.

Theme park operator Six Flags Inc, based in New York, is staging the contest as part of a promotion leading up to Halloween in which it is also offering customers free entry or line-jumping advantages if they eat a live Madagascar hissing cockroach.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it had been flooded with calls from children, adults and even anonymous employees of Six Flags opposing the record-breaking contest and the overall promotion.

"Insects do not deserve to be eaten alive especially for a gratuitous marketing gimmick," PETA spokeswoman Jackie Vergerio told Reuters.





The competition to beat the world cockroach eating record is being held on Friday at a Six Flags park in Gurnee, Illinois. Anyone who beats the record will win a season pass for four people for 2007 with VIP queue-jumping status.

Competitors will try to break the current world record, which is held by Ken Edwards of Derbyshire, England, who devoured 36 Madagascar hissing cockroaches in one minute in 2001.

However Six Flags spokesman James Taylor said the only complaints the company had received were from people who did not have the opportunity to sign up and eat a cockroach because only 12 of its 30 parks in the United States, Canada, and Mexico were participating in the promotion.

Taylor dismissed any health concerns, saying the cockroaches were raised in a sterile environment and were as safe to eat as shrimp or lobster with high nutritional value. Madagascar hissing cockroaches are large, wingless cockroaches that can grow to between 1.5 to 3 inches.

Taylor said no one who had indulged in this rare delicacy had complained. "It's something that's supposed to be scary, it's icky, it's gross, it's Halloween fun and it's just one small part of the haunted houses and thrilling rides going on."

http://today.reuters.com/news/articl...domesticNews-8


So would YOU - personally - be willing to eat a 2 inch long roach to win free passes to a theme park ?

NO !

There are some things that even a Cajun won't eat....

Animal rights should leave them alone. We should encourage them, then there'd be a lot less cockroaches if they did. Maybe we should gather as many as we can and take them to the animal rights peoples houses if they care so much about them. Cockroaches are not high on my list of things to protect.

LOL I will also bring them these stupid sugar ants that I can not seem to get rid of in my kitchen.

They did this at the Six Flags in Louisville KY also. They had 93 people, including children, that actually ate one! There is not enough money in the world for me to eat one of those! Gross!

It's possible you don't have sugar ants. I've been dealing with what I thought were sugar ants for the last 2 summers, but to my absolute horror are actually pharoah ants and CANNOT be killed(eta-I meant killed by conventional means, you can't use sprays-they have to be baited with a slow acting poison to get back to the colony). Trying to kill them just makes the colony SPLIT, then when you try to kill them some more, they split AGAIN, and AGAIN, etc.(think if it like this, 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8, ) ARGH-but I finally have a small handle on it, but it takes forever.

Eat a cockroach for a free pass? Lord no. For a million dollars, very probably but I'd have to be drunk and stoned

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

LOL I will also bring them these stupid sugar ants that I can not seem to get rid of in my kitchen.