UN calls for insect recipes to fight world hunger
Celebrity chefs should be writing recipes for grubs and grasshoppers, according to a new report by the UN.
The 200-page report, released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, on May 13 at the organisation's Rome headquarters, called for restaurants, chefs and food writers to promote the eating of insects, in a bid to fight world hunger and global warming.
"Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly," the FAO said, adding they leave a "low environmental footprint."
They provide high-quality protein and nutrients when compared with meat and fish and are "particularly important as a food supplement for undernourished children".
Insects are "extremely efficient" in turning feed into edible meat, converting feed mass into meat four times more effectively than cows. The report suggests this would allow food to be produced more cheaply, with fewer emissions. Insects are high in protein, and can also be rich in copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium and zinc.
Entomophagy, or the practice of eating insects, has a long history, and is currently practised by two billion people world wide. The report counts around a thousand edible insect species, from the small grasshoppers served "toasted in a little oil with garlic, lemon and salt" on the streets of Oaxaca, to the fly eggs, gathered from stagnant water, that Montezuma enjoyed for breakfast, which the report optimistically terms "Mexican caviar".
