The world's snacks are so strange that Thais can now feed on brightly labeled canned foods from their cupboards - fried locusts, spicy louse lice and other creepy insects.

The Shakonnakon Agricultural Research and Training Center sells a wide variety of canned insects in Bangkok and northeastern Thailand, including delicately packaged soft-fried locusts, crickets in oil, dragonfly flies, crispy silkworm pupae and ant eggs.

Insects are richer in protein and lower in calories than fish products, according to Latana, a technician at the Shakonnakon Agricultural Research Center, which meets the dietary requirements of modern people for health. There is no need to worry about hygiene. In the process of processing live insects into cans, factories usually have to go through many processes, such as cleaning, disinfection, stir-frying, adding condiments and so on. The research center also received a Japanese order and will soon begin exporting small quantities of canned insects to Japan. These odd food lists also add a variety of "variegated insects," including different kinds and quantities of recipes.

The habit of eating insects has a long history in Thailand. More than a century ago, farmers in northeastern Thailand used fried insects as a delicious snack. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Thailand's booming economy attracted people from the northeast to Bangkok for jobs and introduced Fried Insect snacks to the capital. Hawkers selling fried insects in downtown Bangkok say the industry is far more profitable than selling fruit and instant noodles.

Insect supplies at the Sha Fu Agricultural Research Center come from Sha Kung Na, where villagers earn 10,000 baht ($250) a month by capturing insects in large fluorescent lamps at night.