Insect Cuisine Benefits
Perhaps Lewis Carroll's savory and sweet insects- the Bread-And-Butterfly and the Snap-Dragonfly- are not too far off from an overall improved method of feeding humans. People worldwide from Africa, Asia, Australia are already taking advantage of the nutritious insect cuisine available. Among the most popular insects to eat are beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts, and many others (Mercola, 2013). Insects are very nutritious and healthy compared to common sources or protein. They are rich in fiber and protein, high in calcium, vitamin B and iron, and have more healthy fats (Mercola, 2013). The image below, from Knight Science Journalism (2014), depicts some of the major benefits on consuming insects on a regular basis. The graph shows that crickets have more grams of protein, and much less fat per 200 calories, compared to cows. Farming insects is also more environmentally friendly, as it does not require land clearing (Mercola, 2013), they emit less greenhouse gases and produce less waste (Barclay, 2013), and as the image shows, the amount of water and feed needed to produce the same amount of meat is considerably less than for a traditional source of protein (Petit, 2014).
The TED talk entitled Shrimp of the Land discusses many of the benefits of eating insects already addressed about such as their high nutrition and Eco-friendliness, along with many other eye-opening facts. Entomologist Marcel Dicke informs everyone that they have undoubtedly eaten their first insects without even knowing it. The US Food and Drug Administration has guidelines about the amount of insects allowed in processed food. For example, canned fruit juice/ 250 ml can contain 5 fruitfly eggs, and 1-2 larvae. Chocolate is allowed 60 insect components/100g, and noodles are allowed 225 insect parts/ 225 g. These allowances occur because insects cannot be separated entirely from the plant or nut etc. it lives on. Dicke also talks about the flavor of many insects, which most closely resembles that of lobster and shrimp. Apart from the psychology we have today, eating insects seems to be solution for our growing population and decreased available land.
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