Young visitors to the archaeology exhibits at the Virginia Museum of Natural History are often told that hunter-gatherers never let any part of an animal go to waste.

Kids often ask the question: "Did Indians eat deer eyeballs?"

While the physical evidence for eyeball eating is pretty slim, the answer is most likely yes. Many cultures eat the eyeballs of various animals and consider them a delicacy.

In the Middle East, sheep and goat eyeballs can be found roasted and in stews. They are such a special treat that a guest of honor is offered the eyeballs to demonstrate the host's hospitality.

In China, you can have them fried and served with rice. One Ukranian recipe calls for an eyeball stew made with beets. Another recipe calls for removing part of the eye and then stuffing it.

You may have eaten eyeballs without knowing it since they are one of the many body parts that can get ground up and used in hotdogs or other processed meat products.

The animal product in food that many Americans eat now has much less variety than it did even 50 years ago. Take a look at an old cookbook. It is not unusual to find recipes for all kinds of animals (pigeon, squirrel, snake) or various body parts (eyeballs, tongue, cheeks) that are not commonly eaten by most Americans today. You can see many of these parts at grocery stores. They commonly carry tripe (cow's stomach), tongue, hearts, livers, frog legs, and more.

In cultures where the meat is from hunted animals, rather than animals raised on farms, people eat a much wider variety. Archaeologists can figure out what people in the past ate by looking at the bones left behind. Often, the bones found in old trash bins were cut as the animal was butchered. Those butchery marks can be seen even thousands of years later. It is clear from that evidence that people have always eaten a variety of animal foods, eyeballs included.

Correlated Virginia science Standards of Learning: 3.4, 3.5, 4.8, 6.9, LS.12; history: K.2, 1.6, 2.9, VS.2.