The Next New Miracle Superfood: Insects, Scientists Say

Want to boost your vitality with substantial-quality, low-excess fat protein? Seem no even more than bugs.

In accordance to panel discussions held at the 2014 Institute of Foods Technologies (IFT) meeting late last month in New Orleans, insects are the foods of the future. Not only are they great for you, they’re a lower-cost option to animal protein with far much less influence on the setting.

And if this sounds ridiculously futuristic, think once more cricket-based mostly protein powder is presently hitting the market place here in the U.S.

“Some insects are as significantly as 80 % protein by fat and provide far more important amino acids than most animal proteins,” stated IFT panelist Aaron Dossey. “They are also rich in nutrients like omega-three fatty acids.”  Insect protein is also simply digested.

And we’re going to require new sources of protein,  simply because as time goes on there’s just not going to be ample meat to go about. Contemplate these startling stats:

• 70 million: The quantity of men and women extra to the planet’s population each 12 months


• 9 billion: The planet population by 2050 as projected by present population growth rates


• 70 percent: The percentage of agricultural land devoted to livestock manufacturing


• 30 percent: The percentage of all the world’s land utilised to increase livestock

The following high protein diet program fad: crickets. (Photo: wikimedia)

These issues could be alleviated by cultivating a taste for bugs, in accordance to  Dossey. “Insects require much less feed, less water, less land, and less power to generate and their manufacturing generates considerably lower environmental pollutants, this kind of as pesticides and greenhouse gases,” he says.

And he must know: Dossey owns All Factors Bugs LLC, based in Athens, Georgia, which is marketing a substantial-protein cricket powder for use in baking and cooking. 1 of the recipes touted on the company’s web site? Cricket-blueberry pancakes.

Much more than 1400 kind of bugs are edible, say dutch researchers at Wageningen University, who compiled a a lot more than 50-web page listing for the 2014 Worldwide Conference on Insects to Feed the Globe held in May. Amongst them are grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, moths, beetles, flies, bees, ants, cicadas, katydids, weevils, stink bugs and cockroaches. Also on the list: worms and caterpillars.

Agriculture and food production departments at schools around the country are obtaining into the act the University of Georgia, Montana State University, and the University of Illinois all host packages culminating in “bug buffets.” At the University of Nebraska in Lancaster, investigation is underway to boost the methods bugs can be raised, captured, and processed into foods merchandise palatable to the American public.

Of program, insects have long been on the menu in a lot of countries this kind of as Thailand and Mexico, where they’re crunched as a snack, served in tacos, and considered a delicacy. But here in the U.S. it’s going to get some operate to get past the “eww” factor.

And by the way, if you think you’d in no way eat a bug, believe once again – you previously have. The red food coloring utilized in many meals products comes from pulverized cochineal beetles.

All Issues Bugs isn’t the only organization receiving into the insects-as-foods market. London-primarily based Consume-Ento is yet another insect food start off up working to commercialize powdered insects. And Salt Lake City-based Chapul Cricket Bars of Salt sells energy bars created from All Things Bugs’ large-protein cricket powder. They come in flavors such as the Aztec bar, a coffee-dark chocolate-coffee concoction, the Chaco bar, a standard chocolate and peanut butter combo, and the Thai bar, which characteristics ginger and coconut. Chapul bars are presently accessible at select health meals retailers.

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The Next New Miracle Superfood: Insects, Scientists Say