Bugs for Breakfast…Yum?
Bugs for breakfast? Yeah, that’s what researchers at the University of Oxford say we should be eating. A recent study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition compared the nutritional value of insects with your everyday proteins like chicken, beef, and pork. After running a whole slew of tests to check out their calorie levels, vitamins, minerals, sodium, sugar, and saturated fat content they found some very thought provoking differences. When comparing everything but the vitamins and minerals the researchers saw no significant difference between the nutrition of the different proteins. However, when they factored in vitamins and minerals, an entirely new picture emerged. The vitamins and minerals in insects and in crickets, palm weevils, honeybees, and larvae in particular far outweighed those in traditional proteins.
So, does this mean you we should all start eating bugs as a nutritious part of our daily meals? Insect-advocates say yes, but that doesn’t mean Americans are all of a sudden going to start chowing down on insect larvae. However, in countries like China, Mexico, and Thailand insects have been a regular part of meals for a long time. And while it may seem impossible that the trend should cross over the ocean to us, insect-infused products are beginning to pop up in the U.S. You would certainly have more diversity in your meals with the addition of insects. And other foods we once thought of as inedible are now popular staples such as lobsters.
Aer you going to add a little insect to your diet?
