Yes, we keep talking about eating bugs...

The Lempert Report
December 09, 2015

This week in Food News!

What were you doing on October 23rd? Well, if you were a proponent of eating insects, as many people around the globe already do - you were probably celebrating World Edible Insect Day. Yes, that is a thing. 

Katharine Unger, the founder of Livin Farms in Hong Kong is launching a DIY insect farm - a desktop hive in which  you can grow, according to her, healthy and sustainable food right at home. Basically you use vegetable scraps to grow 500 grams of mealworms every week, baked or fried, mealworms are marketed as a healthful snack food and even used as pet food for reptiles, fish and birds. 

Unger started this project after learning that 80% of the world’s antibiotics are used in livestock production and about one-third of our croplands are used to feed those animals. 

According to the United Nation’s Food & Agriculture Organization, insects are extremely rich in protein, vitamins and minerals and have far less negative impact on the environment including greenhouse gas emissions than conventional livestock like beef, pork and poultry. Across Asia, Africa and South America the UN reports that people eat over 1,900 different species of insects. And in Thailand, where insects are considered a food of choice, they often cost more than beef, chicken and pork due to it’s high demand.

So if you don’t like the idea of growing your own mealworms - don’t worry - you can just go online to exotic nutrition.com and buy 22 pounds of live mealworms for just $174.79 or 5 lbs. of dry ones for only $54.95