I would suspect because of two things - one, cinnamon is a bark and probably harbours less insects than the leaves of thyme and two, being a more pungent spice (like clove and nutmeg) I also suspect it doesn't have as many insects hanging about anyway ;-)

Now I'll have nightmares until the end of time. Thanks a lot.

I get it that if you're about to die of hunger suddenly little jumping worms in cheese, or fish that tastes like ammonia, don't look so bad anymore. What completely escapes me is why people eat it today.

What pushes someone who can afford a decent restaurant to instead eat a food that makes them "usually gag involuntarily on the first attempt to eat it due to the high ammonia content"? I mean, for Pete's sake, when someone's telling you to pinch your nose before the first bite lest you throw up your very soul it's a simple matter of rational thought to consider that you're not dying of hunger, and that there are plenty of places that'll sell you all sorts of food which are actually pleasant to eat (and probably cost less).

Human stupidity and masochism will never cease to amaze me.

Although, it should be noted that most bugs are pretty much harmless to eat. What I find disturbing is the larger creatures that end up in your food stuffs. Like rat parts. In your ketchup. There is a tomato cannery in the town where I work - big business here - and there are indeed guidelines for acceptable amounts of rat parts in your tomato products. The acceptable levels are not "zero" as one might hope. Having been out to the cannery and seen the rats running around - they love the leftovers from processing - it's really not surprising that some of them end up in the grinder... but... yech!

Sorry, you probably didn't need to know that.

Then along came "gourmets", who want to push the envelope of culinary decadence by eating this stuff deliberately.

Generally, the peasants who make it cheerfully sell it to the gourmets, then head off to McDonald's. So everybody's happy.

Seriously, whoever thought "I have a great idea, let's make cheese like that" should be shot. And anyone who actually eats it deserves a Darwin Award Nominee plaque, since the little buggers don't just harmlessly pass through you - they actively attack the inner walls of your intestine, doing their best to cause perforations and internal bleeding.