It's alive! 10 living things people somehow love to eat

Oysters - Living food
Chris Watkins
Chris Watkins

ODB was onto something when he said he likes it raaaaaaaaw (he was talking about sushi, right?). But sometimes raw doesn't cut it. Sometimes, baby, people like it aliiiiiiiiive. Some of our favorite foods are still very much living when we consume them. Sometimes, you don't even know you're consuming a living organism. Sometimes, people do totally gross and possibly amoral things to get food so fresh it's still moving... foods you might even find kicking it at the Brooklyn Zoo. Here're some things people eat while they're still breathing.

Ant salad at Noma
Klikpic

Ant Salad
Offering a crunchy alternative to croutons for the gluten-averse, Copenhagen-based Noma -- one of the most lauded restaurants in the world, mind you -- offers a salad topped with crème fraîche and ants, which apparently taste like lemongrass and are chilled so they can't run away very quickly. Even grosser? The salad's $300, making you feel like a jackass for all those times you tossed out ant-covered picnic fruit that couldn've been a goldmine.

Beer
Andy Kryza

Beer
Not all beers are partially living, but if you've got an unpasteurized, unfiltered brew with little blobs in it, said blobs are actually living noble yeasts. They're basically the worker bees of the eukaryotic microorganism world, and you owe them a debt of gratitude... they're the ones who turn carbs into sweet, sweet alcohol. So next time you're pounding a cloudy hefeweizen, be sure to think of all those glorious little friends you're pouring down the hatch... then forget all about them when their good work pays off.

Casu Marzu
Unique Travel Experience

Casu Marzu
This gourmet Italian cheese is noted for being soft and acidic -- something that's bound to happen when flies land in sheep's milk, lay 500 eggs a piece, and take off so the little eggs can hatch into squirming larvae that secrete all over the cheese as it forms.

Opihi
Todblog

Opihi
In Hawaii, these shelled, snail-like gastropods/delicacies are sometimes cooked. Usually, they're not. In the latter instances, you just kind of suck them out of the shell, and hope they don't crawl out of your mouth... which they can't, unless you chew slower than a snail.

Oysters
Andy Kryza

Oysters
People love oysters so much, even ardent vegetarians claim they're more like plants so they can eat them (ummmmm... plants are totally alive too!). Many people straight-up perform B&E on oysters' houses by hoisting them out of the ocean, cracking the shell open, and sucking them down. Is that ok, casual PETA supporter who also eats oysters?! HUH?!

Sannakji
All That Is Interesting

Sannakji
A Korean style of sashimi-style octopus, Sannakji involves taking the cephalopod right out of its tank, chopping it a bit, and serving the tentacles and head on a plate... still squirming. It's probably not feeling much pain at that point, but it still knows it's plenty pissed. When people eat it, the tentacles are known to flail around, slapping the consumer like some sort of ill-fated pimp.

Sea Urchin.

Urchin
Folks who know what they're doing will pull an urchin straight out of the ocean, crack it open, and slurp the living animal right out of the shell. The unknowing just lose eyes.

Blue Cheese

Blue Cheese
All cheeses are the product of intentionally and carefully spoiled milk, but those blue strips that run through this stinky cheese are made from penicillin, a living mold. Note: multiple pounds of blue cheese will likely not cure your sinus infection. But try anyway!

Ikizukuri
Flick River

Ikizukuri
A method of fish preparation so controversial in its cruelty that Germany banned it, this ancient Japanese method is called live sashimi. For some reason, some folks (who also probably buy used underwear in vending machines) think it's delicious to have a carved -- but still living -- fish served up while its vitals are still intact. They do it with frogs too, but the pic was grosser, and we'd never ruin "The Rainbow Connection" for you like that.

Yogurt.
Dan Morris

Yogurt
That's right, yogurt is totally a bunch of living, breathing bacteria. You're not just eating something that's alive. You're eating entire cultures (and if it's Greek yogurt, you're eating a cultural variation on eating cultures). Thank god for frozen yogurt bars, which pull double duty by bringing some much-needed unhealthiness to the plate, but let you drown the screams of those innocent bacteria with tons of candy. Just stay away from the Ikizukuri Swedish Fish.