It's a question we get asked a lot. 'You eat insects? But why!?' The obvious answer is, 'Well, why not?' There's a whole host of reasons for us all to hop on board the insect protein bandwagon, here's our top ten:
They taste great! Roasted crickets have a nutty, savoury umami flavour and cricket flour is a malty and nutty. Locusts taste like fried chicken hot out the oven and ants are zingy like citrus!
Packed with easily digestible protein and essential amino acids.
A healthy dose of B12, great for nerve function among other things.
Great for your gut. When you eat a cricket you're giving your gut a dose of pre-biotic fibre in the form of chitin, the exoskeleton of the cricket. Recent studies suggest chitin is fabulous for your gut, check out this research.
Chock full of iron.
Good for the planet. Farming crickets for food uses less land, water and feed than traditional meats such as beef, chicken or pork to produce the same amount of protein. Choosing locally farmed insect protein in place of meat is a more sustainable option.
An ethical choice. If you think meat is murder, maybe you'd consider an insect as fair game? When farmed insects are harvested for meat they are ethically dispatched by lowering the temperature so they go into what's known as diapause, a sort of hibernation. They are then frozen while in this state in order to kill them. In comparison to how cows, lambs, chickens and pigs are killed in abattoirs this is much more humane.
It's versatile in cooking! Especially our flavoured crickets. Is your stir fry a bit bland? Sprinkle some Sriracha Crickets on there. Is your salad boring you to tears? Throw in some Smoked Crickets!
We've been doing it for millennia! There's evidence to suggest that early man ate insects as part of a hunter gatherer lifestyle and that the extra protein allowed our primitive brains to grow. Check out the research here.
Why the hell not? It's always great to try something new for the first time. Hop on board!
So there you have it, ten reasons to try insect protein today!
