Eat Bugs - It's Good For The Environment!

OK. We've seen "Hidalgo" and watched Viggo Mortensen eat locusts in the desert. And we've seen people eat worms on "Survivor." But you seriously want us to make bugs a diet item? Oh, it might help the environment? Well then...maybe when we go to the Olympics in China this summer. Maybe.

Say, are there any insect dishes that look OK - sort of? Actually, there are. Well, kind of. See the sort of good-looking cooked insects in Chinese fast-food restaurants available this summer in Beijing, if you go to the Olympics, at http://www.slideshare.net/guestc3f996/beijing-fast-food-402956

.And remember - you will be doing the environment SUCH a favor! Wouldn't you like that? Take a second or two to learn all about just how great insect-eating will be in this article:

"Just the Cricket: Eating Insects is Good for Us and the Environment, Scientists Claim" by This Is London.co.uk on 6-2-08 at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23489201-details/Just+the+cricket%3A+Eating+insects+is+good+for+us+and+for+the+environment%2C+scientists+claim/article.do

Scientists claim that adding insects to our diet would be good for us and the environment.

Crunching into crickets or snacking on grilled caterpillar is apparently a means to a nutrient-rich diet that also helps reduce pests and puts less strain on the planet than eating conventional meat.

Some insects in their dried form are said to have twice the protein of raw meat and fish, while others are rich in unsaturated fat and contain important vitamins and minerals.

Experts believe they could one day be marketed as a healthy alternative to fatty snacks.

Some 1,700 species of bug are eaten in 113 countries. Isn't that encouraging?.

In Taiwan, stir-fried crickets or sauteed caterpillars are delicacies. A plate of maguey worms - larvae of a giant butterfly - sells for £12.50 in smart Mexican restaurants.

Sago grubs wrapped in banana leaves go down well in Papua New Guinea, as does dragonfly in Bali.

In many parts of south-east Asia market stalls sell insects by the pound and deep-fried snacks are served up as street food.

In North Africa locusts are sometimes called sky prawns.

Patrick Durst, of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, said...the trick might be to make the bugs look more palatable.

OK Patrick. How would that work?

'You need to get the food into a form where someone doesn't have to look the bug in the eye when they eat it,' he said.

(Oh. Thanks Patrick.)

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation had a big conference to discuss how entomophagy - eating insects as food - could contribute to sustainable development. Oh, good!

Bug-farming preserves forests - which are needed to attract insects - and is encouraged in some countries.

As for pesticides, some experts have pointed out the irony of using chemicals to get rid of bugs that are more nutritious than the crops they prey on. (Why didn't I think of that before??)

In Thailand when pesticides failed to control locusts, the government urged locals to eat them and distributed recipes.

Chef Paul Cook, who supplies exotic and unusual food through his Bristol-based business Osgrow, has sold a range of insects including locusts.

He said: 'You have to get past your feeling when you look at a whole locust or cricket. They are very clean and nutritious.

Well, everyone. It's obvious, isn't it, that eating bugs would help the environment? Sadly, it's also obvious that most of us don't want to help the environment badly enough to do that.

But actually, there is another great reason to add bug dishes to our diet. Can you think of a better way to lose weight?