Guestimating protien intake...
 

Just as I was preparing for my evening ride, I looked outside and noticed a huge black cloud blotting out the sky. Five minutes later, it was torrential downpour and hail that knocked out the DirecTV feed and a segment of The Road to the Tour I was in the process of watching. This lasted for about an hour which delayed my departure. Then as soon as it came, it was all gone and the sun was shining. I set off on my ride but didn't return until just before the sun had completely set.

As soon as I walked in, my wife tried to greet me and a look of horror came over her face. She told me to immediately go shower. I went upstairs and looked in the mirror to discover my head was full of bugs... some of them still alive. I then washed out my mouth and about ten bugs went down the drain. So suddenly I had an idea. I began counting. I counted to about 90 bugs but I may have missed some on the back of my head.

I got to thinking... Given that 90 bugs accumulated on my head through my helmet vents and ten bugs were stuck in my teeth, would there be a really rough way of estimating the amount of protein I just ingested during my 30 mile ride? We know the approximate unrestricted flow rate from the bugs in my head... We can compare the size of my mouth to the overall frontal area of the helmet vents and probably derive the restricted flow rate from that... We can probably make a pretty good guess at the statistical dispersion of bugs that get past my teeth... Come on, any math wizzes and fluid dynamic experts willing to prop up some guesses? :D

I couldn't even imagine, but you are seriously grossing me out... I mean, SERIOUSLY!

Gross, man! I would have jumped in scalding water and scrubbed myself until I nearly had no skin, if that had happened to me, although I did notice I was ingesting some bugs today accidentally- well almost, because I was spitting them out before I could swallow, and I was wondering the same thing- how much protein I could have been getting if I hadn't have been so disgusted!

Koff

Wow! That's gotta be better than creotine.

We'll just do rough estimates since there are too many factors to really get an accurate idea. Let's assume that your helmet is semi-circular in profile with a 9" diameter (just a guess). This gives a frontal area of 32 sq. in. If you have a nice helmet with 40% of that area being vents, there are 13 sq. in. of space which would then collect bugs at a density of about 6.9 bugs per sq. in.

Let's look at your mouth. I will assume that you ride hard enough that you reflexively bare your teeth, otherwise your number seems kinda high. At 1/4 in by 2 in top and bottom (high end estimate) you could expose as much as 1 sq. in. of teeth to catch bugs. The higher density of 10 bugs per sq. in. is likely attributable to aerodynamics of the helmet that would deflect large quantities around the edges. We'll assume the "suction" of your breath to be negligible at road speeds, but also assume that you suck down bugs at a rate similar (if not above) the rate they get stuck in your teeth. Breathing hard could expose as much as 2 sq. in. of mouth which should inhale about 20 bugs. I believe an earlier thread discussed the protein composition of insects but I don't have the results of that analysis. What kind of bugs were they? We need to be able to estimate the weight of the bugs and compare that number*20*(%protein) to the 75 grams of protein recommended for a person on a 3000 calorie diet.

Sorry I can't do a very accurate analysis without being able to measure your helmet and observe your riding habits. Fluid dynamics over the human face could get pretty involved too. I would guess you didn't ingest more than 2-3 grams of bugs (if they were no bigger than housefly sized), so probably less than a gram of protein.

Go eat a big sirloin steak to make up for it. :D

Now where was the appropriate smiley for this thread? Oh yeah...here it is!

Personally as a vegetarian, I don’t eat bugs, but I would imagine that you are getting way more then the recommended 2.8% of your daily intake of protein just from your ride.

Not even by accident? Sometimes it's unavoidable. I didn't choose to eat those bugs. :eek:

Very! Very interesting approach! :)
Enjoyed the reading.