We regularly see Bear Grylls tucking into unappetizing snacks like maggots or scorpions on his TV shows. This begs the question; in all his years of filming shows like Man vs. Wild and Running Wild, what is the most disgusting thing he has ever eaten?
Here are five very strong contenders.
Yak’s Eyeball
In a cold frozen landscape during an episode of Man vs. Wild in Siberia, the only thing available was a dead yak. Bear chose to eat the yak’s eyeball, which was full of blood and fluid. He said it was one of the worst things he has ever eaten.
“Eyeballs will give you more protein than a steak, and in the battle for survival, you’ve got to have a strong stomach,” he told the camera. He admitted afterwards that it tasted awful—like an “eruption of cold fluid, gristle, and blood.”
Weta Insect
Filming in New Zealand, Bear found and tucked into a giant tree weta insect—like a giant cricket—which he said was “off the scale” in size and very mean looking.
As the giant insect dangled its body and legs from a stick, Bear tried to figure out where to start to eat it. When Bear grabbed it with his fingers, the weta fought back and bit him on the finger, drawing blood. Bear ripped the head off, then some legs, before popping the body into his mouth. He said it smelled so rancid, he held his nose.
Goat’s Testicle
Bear and his filming crew were once spending the night with the Berber desert dwellers in the Western Sahara desert. As a gesture of hospitality, they slaughtered a goat for a feast, and Bear was offered one of the testicles as an honor. He had to eat it warm and raw.
In his biography, Never Give Up, Bear described what happened:
“I squeezed the testicle into my wide open mouth and chewed with a grimace. The ball seemed to hover then suddenly explode into a mouthful of what I could only presume was goat sperm, and I choked to swallow it down. But the gag reflex and pungent taste was so strong that I instantly wretched and felt the vomit rise within me.” Bear managed to swallow it all, vomit and all.
Snake Eggs
“Survival food is never pretty, but in the wild you need energy,” said Bear in episode one of his TV show, I Survived Bear Grylls. “I remember once in the Namibian desert, totally out of food, and after a couple of days I managed to dig and I found some snake eggs,” he said.
“As a survivor I love eggs, they don’t bite me, they don’t run away, and they are a complete food source of everything you need to stay alive.”
Bear Scat
Another time, Bear came across some bear scat. Breaking it up, he was able to see that the bear had eaten an apple.
He says in an extreme situation, you might have to eat something like this. He first gave it a rinse with water from his bottle and then tucked in. He says it was pretty disgusting—it tasted like fruit that has been mixed into dog poop—but it could save your life.
