Adding Bugs to our Diet is GOOD FOR US & GOOD FOR THE PLANET!
We should all eat bugs. Eating insects can have a positive effect on your life in a variety of ways. There’s the personal experience, the global experience and the environmental impact that eating insects can have.
Adding insects to our diets is a whole new culinary experience. There are nearly 2000 insects considered food and every one of them taste different.
insects are a real animal protein that includes all nine essential amino acids; they’re a prebiotic fiber (nutrition for probiotics), very high in antioxidants, a perfect Omega 3:6 balance, high in B12, Calcium, Zinc, Iron, and more. Insects are also a very bio-available food source.
Meat production is a major cause of global warming and is unsustainable. Adding insects to our diets worldwide will reduce the need for meat and therefore help fight global warming.
Traditional foods that use insects are being abandoned because we look at insects as the food of the poor. We’re shaming people for using an affordable source of protein that is available to almost anyone anywhere.
Add Bugs to Your Meals
Many people are surprised by how good insects taste; and that insects come in such a wide variety of flavors. Crickets are referred to as having a mild “nutty” flavor while, for example, water scorpions kind of taste like pumpkin seeds, and katydids have a pistachio-like flavor.
Keep this in mind, the hardest insect to eat is… your first one.
After your first insect, you’ll find it easier to accept, (sushi was ‘icky’ when new to North America until the California Roll was introduced) and pretty soon you’ll be laughing with your friends that it was once thought ‘Gross’.
Insects offer a whole new culinary experience.
Insects are easy to eat. This is one reason many people like them as snacks.
Give Sour Cream & Onion crickets a shot: https://www.edibleinsects.com/product/sour-cream-onion-crickets/
Bugs are Healthy for You!
Are insects what’s missing from our diets? They’re high in protein with all of the essential amino acids and they have as much calcium as milk and iron as spinach. Bugs exoskeletons are made from chitin. Insect chitin is very good for you because it’s a prebiotic (food for probiotics).
Insects Can Help Reduce Food Security and Poor Nutrition Issues
Insects can be raised just about anywhere. Families can raise insects on table scraps and weeds from their gardens. It takes very little feed to produce a pound of crickets. In Asia, where eating insects is common, many people harvest them from the wild. In fact, when locusts descend upon a field of crops, they can be seen as a bounty.
Insects can be raised using less water, land, and feed than traditional livestock. They can be raised vertically in urban environments and can be raised on food and farm waste. Adding insects to our diets is a smart and nutritional step forward.
Eating insects makes sense but, at a critical time for our species and the planet, we’re pushing people worldwide away from their traditional foods and towards unsustainable foods like beef. Steak is revered while insects are reviled. We look at insects as survival food or, worse, the food of the poor. We’re shaming people away from an affordable and sustainable source of protein due to our unwarranted cultural fears.
Insects Can Help Fight Global Warming
Protein plays an important part in global nutrition. Meat is a common way for people to get protein and essential amino acids, but farming large animals is expensive and bad for the environment. Over a third of our arable land is used for agriculture. It takes over a thousand gallons of water to produce a single pound of meat. Insects can be raised on a small fraction of land and barely any water for the same amount of nutrition.
Adding insects to our diet will reduce pollution and the inhumane treatment of livestock.
North America Needs to Lead the World
Mexico enjoys nearly two hundred different insects as food. The United States and Canada are the opposite. We scorn insects as food. We look down on people that eat insects.
Our attitude is racist. Europeans used the fact that native people ate animals with six legs as an example of their inferiority. We need to change this perception.
You can help by creating conversations and posting about your edible insect experiences.
When make eating insects a ‘thing’ in North America, the rest of the world will follow and the future will be a better place for everyone.
Chefs are the Answer!
Vanguard chefs that create dishes using insects as ingredients are the key to gaining acceptance.
Insects taste good and once people experience this new cuisine, it will become popular the way lobster and Sushi did. Both lobster and sushi were once reviled and are now some of the most expensive foods.
Insects offer a culinary adventure few have experienced before.
Ready to Eat Bugs?
It’s easy! Just add edible crickets to your salads, roasted mealworms to your pizza and use insect powder, like cricket powder, in your baking, your protein shakes, your meals etc. Or try some insect candy! Who can say no to chocolate?
How You Can Help
Create conversation, post about your experience, and cook. Be loud. Let the world know that insects taste great and are healthy for us and the planet.
We need to reverse the attitude that insects are icky and promote the health benefits of this sustainable, humanely raised food group.
Your voice counts.
Good for You | Good for Our Planet
