Bugs many of us see them as disgusting
and gross let's face it they freak
people out
but at Wayne State University assistant
professor Julie Lesnick has a different
outlook on these creepy crawlers I
primarily focus on insects as food. Wait,
what?
So in studying the evolution human diet
I realized that insects are a very
important part of our diets for over the
course of human evolution. So people like
Julie decided that our way of eating was
just not working out.
We are unhealthy, very unhealthy. The word
entomophagy in Greek is broken down to
an Entomos or Entomon meaning insect
and Phagein meaning to eat. Combining
these two terms mean insect eating. Insects
have served as a food source for people
for tens of thousands of years all over
the planet. Tens of thousands of the
years that's like caveman times but back
to Julie. What we found to be successful
is replacing about 1/3 of the flour that
a regular recipe calls for with the
cricket powder instead. You young hoodlum I'll
knock your block off. And so that ups the
nutritional value of something like a
muffin. But wait a minute
why crickets?
There are thousands of insects that are
eaten worldwide but for some reason
crickets are the ones gaining momentum
here in the United States. One they're easy
to farm you can produce millions of them
in a relatively small space with a very
quick turnover and we eat them in their
adult form so you have a lot longer time
in which they are good food. But another
thing is just kind of the acceptability
of crickets. Ok. Sure these nutrients can
be found at plant sources too but you
have to eat a lot more of them. Nutrition
is sort of like money if leaves
represent dollar bills fruits or fives
nuts are tens and insects and other
forms of animal flesh are crispy fifties.
So in a way crickets are kind of forging
a path for insects this food and so
maybe with more acceptability of
crickets will then move on to mealworms
and then who knows how many of the
thousands of edible insects.
