If the concept of eating insects is completely new to you, and you’ve just found this post by browsing through the weird and wonderful world wide web, then you may well have one burning question; why on earth would anyone want to eat insects?!
Celebrities act like it’s a bad thing
Well let’s start with the game show “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!”. In this TV program, the celebrities have to complete challenges in order to receive their food for the week. This show mostly goes out to the UK, where eating edible insects is still a new concept. So when the celebrities are asked to eat insects as part of a “challenge” the viewers are led to believe that it’s a difficult or unpleasant thing to do. And of course the celebrities act up and play along!
TV rarely shows you the good bits
In fact, eating edible bugs is not only a very nutritious snack for you with plenty of protein, but a cricket dipped in sweet chilli sauce beats a bland peanut any day. And as for chocolate… there are plenty of edible insects for sale dipped in delicious chocolate coatings. Some favourite bug candy includes chocolate covered superworms, grasshoppers and scorpions. You may have seen the odd scorpion lollipop on TV, often taken home as a souvenir, but the real bug candy is the chocolate covered insects.
You only really see edible insects in their natural state
Apart from the game shows on TV making a song and dance about eating a worm, you’ve also probably seen some of the survivor programs with adventurers like Bear Grylls. Whilst trekking some remote parts of the world, the presenter will do a little piece to the camera about how they haven’t eaten for days, need to stock up on essential protein, salt and the like, then catch a scorpion, rip its sting off and eat it. And we are all supposed to be in awe of how tough the adventurer is that they’ll eat bugs to survive.
There’s truth in the nutritional value of “raw” edible insects but there’s no need to be so savage to enjoy the benefits of eating bugs. A sensible adventurer might consider carrying a bag of gluten free cricket pasta with them to boil up over the campfire because 100g of filling pasta has 14g of protein in it. Or perhaps they should consider making their own energy bars from insect powder before trekking the world.
What we should be seeing about edible insects on TV
There should be more coverage of edible bugs and their uses for nutrition, encouraging citizens to utilise this plentiful renewable food source. We’d like to see news of places like the fantastic “Pestaurant” in Pembrokshire that serves professionally prepared bug based dishes on its restaurant menu please.
