it also depends on the kind of bugs. crickets and mealworms are a lot easier to get ahold of than say, wasps, and way meatier than craneflies. you find a lot of insect-related cuisine in southeast asia. the BBC did a pretty good documentary on it. there was even a group that subsisted mostly on rice and the protein rich meat of highly poisonous tarantulas. (they weren’t very long lived.)
the fact remains that ponies don’t think grass is disgusting. and twilight is trying to sell the grass, so she can get more books. isn’t that obvious? story for food!
@redweasel
Maybe if you farm them or know where to look, but even right here in a very lush state, I don’t think I could find enough bugs to live off of very easily…
Plus, I really don’t think they’d find grass as disgusting as we find bugs, or most ponies wouldn’t want to ever even touch grass…
With all the plantlife surrounding her, she ain’t starving anytime soon. Hence her adorable smile and the happy atmosphere of the pic. She just misses Cake and hayburgers.
you could hunt insects and get enough to live off of, even without hunting them all day. the chitin makes them hard to process, but people can and do live off of a diet of bugs.
Hmm. Might be clovers or some kinda leaves, actually. Thought I remembered seeing grass. They have mentioned grass pancakes, though. Can’t recall when.
@Officer Hot-Pants
Except we’ve seen them use grass like that in sandwiches, and they’ve referred to “grass pancakes” before, so they don’t think it’s gross. And you could hunt insects all day and still not get enough to live off of, but if a horse grazes all day in a grassy area it can live.
@Cirrus Light
All of which is applicable to grass. Grass may also be disgusting (especially if it tastes for them the same as it tastes for us) and it takes a lot of lot of it to sustain creatures of any considerable size capable of processing it. You’ll also note that the ponies are always portrayed eating hay, grains, flowers, fruits and familiar vegetables when it comes to plant-based products. Our ancestors would have eaten bugs readily enough but in most places we’ve moved away from that as we’ve developed and secured more steady supplies of better food. Same could very easily be said for ponies, who share the majority of our technological and cultural developmental path.
Plus herbivore doesn’t mean “can eat any plant and get by” any more than carnivore and omnivore mean “can eat any animal/thing and get by”. Some things are toxic and others simply useless due to one’s biology.
@Officer Hot-Pants
Bugs are disgusting, and may require preparation like animals definitely do, which require a whole lot to catch - and bugs also don’t fill you very much because they’re ludicrously tiny.
Meanwhile, they put plants on their plates in much the same state they are in on the ground, we’ve seen.
An herbivore could really starve in the city, though. Then get yelled at by business managers or security for grazing on commercial lawns.
