Food and Culture: New Dishes on the Eco-Menu

Perhaps it won’t be necessary to eat insects for breakfast to save the environment after all…

Beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, crickets, scorpions and spiders: these insects make up part of the daily diet of nearly two billion people and, according to a United Nations – Food and Agriculture Organisation report, help fight hunger, create jobs as well as safeguarding the environment and water resources. The UN hopes that an insect-based diet – which is high in protein, vitamins, fibre and mineral salts – could spill beyond Asian and African borders to become a global food trend. But there is one minor problem. Throughout most of the West, the idea of insects as victuals evokes disgust and, in extreme cases, horror.

If you want to read it all, purchase the entire issue in pdf for just three euro