In the corner of a large, dim warehouse inside the Port of Oakland, Edel Gaingalas swings a hammer into a piece of wood. She’s looking for larvae -- the wood, pried off a shipping crate, is riddled with holes bored by insects who chewed their way inside looking for a home, but every one she's found so far is dead -- killed by the mandatory fumigation at the port of origin. Before the day is out, she'll find a live longhorned beetle larva, and the whole shipment will be sent back to China.

Like many of the people in this warehouse, Gaingalas used to work at the airport, in the international terminal of San Francisco-Oakland (SFO). She went through people’s luggage all day. Now, as a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agricultural specialist, she mostly hunts for bugs, though she finds the occasional plant as well -- like the time she found two rare orchids hidden inside a piece of furniture being imported from Asia. But she and CBP chief supervisory officer and public relations liaison Edward Low aren't strangers to bizarre customs discoveries: Low rattles off a list of things found in SFO Airport luggage with the practiced air of a man who gets asked this question a great deal. “A cow intestine with the grass still in it,” says Low. “A human hand stuffed with straw. Penises galore. Pick an animal -- we’ve found its penis in someone’s luggage."

This post is part of Protein Angst, a series on the environmental and nutritional complexities of high-protein foods. Our goal is to publish a range of perspectives on these very heated topics. Add your feedback and story suggestions here.

Photo by DChris.

There are people around who remember the days when squirrel was a more commonly served meat on the American table than chicken. The Kentucky Long Rifle, with its long barrel and small caliber, was designed for squirrel hunting (the smaller the caliber, the more squirrel left to take home after shooting one.)

The ideal shot was aimed not at the squirrel, but at the tree branch directly below it, so that the animal would be killed by the concussion of the bullet instead of the bullet itself. Historians say that this is what won the Revolutionary war; even the most highly trained British soldiers were no match for squirrel killers trained by hunger.

Until recent decades, Americans ate squirrel meat because it was cheap, plentiful, and there, according to Hank Shaw, author of Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast. Domesticated animals may have been easier to catch, but, in the days before the industrialization of farming, they were expensive to raise and feed. “When Herbert Hoover promised a chicken in every pot, that was a big deal,” Shaw adds. The first edition of The Joy of Cooking, published in 1931, was heavy on the squirrel. As it moved into later and later editions, Hoover’s promise was fulfilled (by other politicians, if not Hoover himself) and chicken gradually replaced squirrel.

Tree sparrows have seen large declines in western Europe, in part due to changes in farming practices.Photo: Nutmeg66Call it the bird tax -- or rather, the amount of food that farmers need to set aside in order to get birds to stick around and stop dying. Farmers don't historically have an awesome relationship with birds [PDF], but in recent years, they've actually been paid to scatter grain around their land after the harvest, since a lack of seed resources in winter is thought to be one of the reasons for birds' dramatic decline. Some of the seeds farmers spread around …

2011 was a record year for liability, with drought in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma, and Hurricane Irene taking out crops along the Eastern seaboard. Photo: Bob Gutowski One of the great battles of the 2012 Farm Bill might concern ... (drumroll) ... crop insurance! Don't roll your eyes: At $8 billion, it's the largest part of the current farm bill budget that actually has to do with farms (as opposed to what is literally the largest part, which deals with food stamps). According to a leaked document containing a set of recommendations by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to …

Photo: Frank KehrenFor years journalists have warned of imminent banana extinction. "Get bananas while you still can," wrote New Scientist over five years ago. "The world's most popular fruit ... is in deep trouble," it went on to say, adding that the banana would probably be out of supermarkets by 2013, and would soon exist only in backyard gardens and other places the Panama Race IV, a pathogen taking out plantations in Southeast Asia, couldn't reach. But today -- just a few years from the banana's supposed demise -- one can walk down the street and find bananas in the …

On a sunny afternoon, the crowd of customers around the Don Bugito stand debates the merits of various gateway bugs. "Crickets," says a towheaded youngster, who would look like a character in a Mark Twain novel, were it not for the fact that he is digging into a cup of ice cream sprinkled with toasted mealworms. "Those are the first bugs I ate. I bought them at a candy store in Napa." "A scorpion is a good beginner bug," says one woman, biting into a taco. She ate one at a night market in China. "They look pretty badass -- …

Rigoberto Bucio, 25, selling his own organic produce at the North Oakland, Calif. farmer markets. Photos: Bart Nagel The strawberries, purchased in November, in a rainy parking lot behind a community clinic, feel like they've traveled in time from summer to here. Out of season, strawberries usually taste like rainwater. These have a taste that is sharp and unexpected. The North Oakland farmers market is almost deserted -- it's a new one, just getting off the ground. The people here selling their wares look soggy and wan and not especially thrilled to be here. Nor does the wet goat that …