Eating insects is good for us and for the environment, scientists claim
Pastor Dale Morgan
Eating insects is good for us and for the environment, scientists claim*
By Beth Hale
Last updated at 9:15 AM on 02nd June 2008
It might be a while before they appear on the shelf at your favorite
grocery store
But scientists claim adding insects to our diet would be good for us and
the environment.
Crunching into crickets or snacking on grilled caterpillar is apparently
a means to a nutrient-rich diet that also helps reduce pests and puts
less strain on the planet than eating conventional meat.
Some insects in their dried form are said to have twice the protein of
raw meat and fish, while others are rich in unsaturated fat and contain
important vitamins and minerals.
Experts believe they could one day be marketed as a healthy alternative
to fatty snacks.
In most of Europe, bug-eating is largely restricted to the belated
realisation that there has been an unwelcome addition to the salad.
It is common elsewhere, however, with some 1,700 species of bug eaten in
113 countries.
In Taiwan, stir-fried crickets or sauteed caterpillars are delicacies. A
plate of maguey worms - larvae of a giant butterfly - sells for
£12.50 in smart Mexican restaurants.
Sago grubs wrapped in banana leaves go down well in Papua New Guinea, as
does dragonfly in Bali.
In many parts of south-east Asia market stalls sell insects by the pound
and deep-fried snacks are served up as street food.
Insects are arthropods, much like crab, shrimps and lobster which are
all accepted by the European palate. In North Africa locusts are
sometimes called sky prawns.
But Patrick Durst, of the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation, said that if consumers were to be tempted to broaden their
culinary horizons the trick might be to make the bugs look more palatable.
'You need to get the food into a form where someone doesn't have to look
the bug in the eye when they eat it,' he said.
Earlier this year the Food and Agriculture Organisation held a
conference to discuss how entomophagy - eating insects as food -
could contribute to sustainable development.
Bug-farming preserves forests - which are needed to attract insects
- and is encouraged in some countries.
As for pesticides, some experts have pointed out the irony of using
chemicals to get rid of bugs that are more nutritious than the crops
they prey on.
In Thailand when pesticides failed to control locusts, the government
urged locals to eat them and distributed recipes.
Chef Paul Cook, who supplies exotic and unusual food through his
Bristol-based business Osgrow, has sold a range of insects including
locusts.
He said: 'You have to get past your feeling when you look at a whole
locust or cricket. They are very clean and nutritious.
'But I don't think we are going to see Jamie Oliver encouraging us to
have sky prawns on the school menu.'