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Want to feed a hungry world? According to David Gracer, add bugs to the menu. Gracer is, he says, a normal guy who’s also an entomophagist, an advocate for insects as food. He gave a talk about ingesting insects at a May 16th TEDxCambridge conference called “How We Eat.” The event was a spin-off of the popular TED talks.
Here’s one of the reasons Gracer’s a fan: "They can’t give us pandemics. So the mass production of insects—farm insects—really easy. There’s no cricket flu on par with avian flu or swine flu or E. coli."
And then there’s this: "Look, crickets are not better than beef in every category, just most of them."
Gracer says a bowl of grasshoppers has more vitamins than beef and is lower in fat—and uses far fewer resources to produce. Our disgust for insects is just cultural, Gracer says. After all, we eat lobsters, which are arthropods, as are insects. Ready to crunch a cicada?
—Cynthia Graber
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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9 Comments
Add Commentwell, I guess then there's no hunger in Africa where there are plagues of locusts every few years - of course unless there's a cultural bias against eating insects there as well!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis has been looked at for years, and makes total sense. But like many solutions, the sell has to be to those that are the consumer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt least we should produce such for animal food. Instead of feeding cows to cows, we should be feeding them insects.
Last time I was in a speciality pet store I saw ingrediates like salmon, and herring.
Come on, using our resouces to feed our pets like this is a slap to common sense. Like my german shepard knows nor cares...especially after all the added flavoring.
Not to mention, I am sure that the protein from crickets is way more digestible than the majority of ingrediates placed there to manipulate the purchase.
@kapanen, "Last time I was in a speciality pet store I saw ingrediates like salmon, and herring." those are not food grade products, they are by-products of processing. But certainly cats could eat grasshoppers since they do it in the wild. The problem is cats don't buy cat food, people do. You would likely find it just as difficult to sell grasshopper based cat food as you would rodent based cat food, another natural food source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore great news for vegetarians
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiskapanen - Great idea for cattle, especially considering 'Mad Cow' disease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow, if we could only find that recipe for cricket-burgers - for the rest of us...
People do eat insects in Africa as well as many parts of Asia, Central and South America. I've eaten crickets in Mexico and termites in Southern Africa.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMisterA...how is this "More great news for vegetarians"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLast time I checked by science books, crickets are part of the ANIMAL kingdom.
MisterA....still waiting on a reply....waiting....(crickets chirping)....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ sparcboy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think MisterA was being sarcastic. And I think that if people didn't know that they were eating a bug then they'd be more likely to eat it because they wouldn't think of any stereotypes they know or of the bug they are eating in it's natural habitat . .. There was a girl I know who ate a fried frog leg because she thought it was chicken and she was all for it until she asked what it was. :)