On the rare occasion that I eat at McDonald’s or Burger King, I order a fish or chicken sandwich of some kind, not really believing my own rationalization that I’m making some kind of healthier choice on the menu. I was doing a pretty good job of not wondering exactly which fish I was eating until yesterday, when I read that the Filet o’ Fish was being put on the endangered species list. Which got me thinking about the United Nations’ suggestion last year that insects are the food of the future. I mean, like I often say: “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he’ll starve in 50 years“. If the idea of an Entomophagic lifestyle bugs you, consider these two facts: 1.) In many parts of the the world (the word “parts” will take on a new meaning in fact 2!), insects are already a perfectly acceptable part of people’s diets, and 2:) You’re already eating them! If you’ve never looked at the FDA’s Food Defect Action Levels guide, give it a quick scan. A typical example of how many bugs you’re eating includes quantities like 150 or more insect fragments per 100 grams of Wheat flour. If you’re particularly microbe-phobic, just don’t, really, don’t review the guide; the glossary necessarily includes terms like “foreign matter”, “infestation”, “mold count”, “rancid”, “rot”, and “shrivel”. So if this hasn’t all turned you off to the idea of eating some bugs for dinner tonight, check out the insects-as-food enthusiasts’ web site InsectsAreFood.com, wherein Founder Marc Dennis points out that “Insects in cuisine today are what sushi was two decades ago” and advisor Jeff Stewart’s additional site CreepyCrawlyCooking.com asks reasonably, right on the home page: “Why eat insects?”

Time Magazine Explores Bug Cuisine At The Broad Appétit Food Fair In Richmond, Virginia

These little babies provide six times more iron than beef: