Have you eaten insects?

So have you ever eaten insects? For much of the world eating insects is a regular part of diets. In the western diet, insects are not common, but are starting to appear.

In the USA recently there was a rush to add insects to a lot of ready to eat foods like pizza and tacos. This was done as part of a way by clever businesses to use the many cicadas during their periodic 17 year emergence.

There are increasing restaurants in Australia now adding insects to their menus.

This is great because insects use significantly less resources to produce more protein weight for weight than all meat producing animals. So they are a very sustainale method of delivering the protein we all need in our diets.

There are only two problems at the end of the day in insects being a regular part of our diets.

The first is getting the western public to be comfortable with eating ants, grasshoppers, cicadas, termites, spiders, cockroaches and other “creepy crawlies”.

The first set in developing this comfort is to use flour made from insects in current products, so the protein is going into the foods but people do not see the legs  and other bits to make them aware that they are in fact eating insects. This is already happening in the food industry.

The second difficulty is that there is a high likelihood that there will be people who will have an allergy to eating insects. Study is being done to determine if there those who are allergic to crustaceans are also allergic to insects, as both are related to the protein in the exoskeleton.

Labelling is already appearing on products about this link.Studies are continuing to determine if there is a link.

More information can be found at;

https://issuu.com/foodaust/docs/food_australia_jan-mar_2022_digital_single_final?fr=sMDU0NzQ1NjgwODU