A source of calories is not all that is needed, substantial nutritional benefits must be included as well. After all, with a population facing a new and unusual decline in health, as is being witnessed currently in the United States, another nutritionally bankrupt. artificial creation is hardly what is needed. Insects offer a unique alternative to traditional animal agriculture, more sustainable and with a nutritional profile to rival our current choices. Additionally, with thousands of arthropod (insects and their crawling relatives, like scorpions and tarantulas) choices, there is something to suit everyone’s needs.
ARTICLES ON INSECTS AND HUMAN HEALTH
Eating ants, grasshoppers and silkworms could protect against CANCER because…’they have more antioxidants than orange juice‘
Eating ants and other bugs could protect people from developing cancer, according to scientists.
Although not an appetizing ingredient of a salad or smoothie, the creepy crawlies may be worth stomaching for their health benefits alone.
Eating crickets can be good for your gut according to new clinical trial
Valerie Stull was 12 when she ate her first insect.
“I was on a trip with my parents in Central America and we were served fried ants,” she says. “I remember being so grossed out initially, but when I put the ant in my mouth, I was really surprised because it tasted like food — and it was good!”
Today, Stull, a recent doctoral graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, is the lead author of a new pilot clinical trial published in the journal Scientific Reports that looks at what eating crickets does to the human microbiome.
It shows that consuming crickets can help support the growth of beneficial gut bacteria and that eating crickets is not only safe at high doses but may also reduce inflammation in the body.
The Benefits of Eating Bugs
It would help you, it would help the planet, but what about the yuck factor?
Bill Broadbent started selling packaged, ready-to-eat insect products online five years ago after his son researched bug-eating and touted the nutritional and environmental benefits. “For fun, we put up a website,” Broadbent says. As sales took off, he formed a company with his sister, Susan Broadbent, in a barn next to his house in Lewiston, Maine. This year the company, Entosense, began wholesaling flavored crickets and other edible insects to small grocery stores, and the company now has a half-dozen employees and is in distribution talks with major grocery chains — one of many signs that bugs are creeping into American diets.