Exclusive | I eat up to 100 live bugs a day I love being the master of their destiny and how they massage my tongue

Imagine a low-calorie, protein-packed noodle that evokes the butteriness of French cheeses.The good news is that you don’t need to book a table at a buzzy new bistro to try it.This earthy delicacy is served in a brown paper bag — and it doesn’t really put up a fight.“Mealworms [are] a contender for, like, one of my most favorite insects,” a Chicago-area resident named Carlos declares before slurping down a handful.“And my favorite thing about them is the flavor.

It’s a lot like buttered popcorn.”If you haven’t gagged yet — brace yourself! Carlos, 26, scarfs down heaps of live mealworms and roaches on Wednesday’s episode of TLC’s “My Strange Addiction.”In an exclusive preview clip provided to The Post, Carlos likens crickets to a veggie delight.He also swears that the insides of cockroaches “taste like custard.” And even worse — he loves the way creepy-crawlies “swarm” his mouth, “massage” his tongue and “tickle” his throat.“When it, like, squiggles around your mouth, very rewarding.You don’t get that from any other kind of food, I guarantee you,” Carlos said.Carlos is unemployed but livin’ his pest life, as his partner and the mother of his infant daughter frets that he is risking his health and frittering away their savings.Just because these insects are found in dirt doesn’t make them dirt cheap.

Carlos is shown in the episode shelling out $8 for a mealworm-roach mix at a reptile specialty store.“When I first found out about Carlos’s bugging, I thought it was, I guess, cute,” partner Ashley said.“But as time has gone on, it’s become evident that it’s a major crutch for him.”Carlos said he caught the bug as a little boy.“At a very young age, I always had a curiosity about eating them,” he explained.“My earliest memory as a child was when I was like 4 years old, and I was eating bugs at that age.”Now, Carlos is devouring up to 100 live bugs a day.“My Strange Addiction” producers hel...