Would You Eat Chips With “Edible Bugs?” Well–Would You???

Although many people gag at the thought of eating bugs (ooh, ick!) there are some cultures where bugs are part of a healthy diet.  If you travel overseas, you may come across people who eat fried locusts or Maguey worms.  While this isn’t a common snack in the U.S., it could be soon.

Two companies recently teamed up to launch healthy edible bug snacks.  I’m not making this up.  Six Foods (a Boston company) and Big Cricket Farms (an Ohio company) are introducing “Chirps” to the world.  These are baked chips made with beans, rice, and…I kid you not…cricket flour, which is a protein-rich flour made up of…you guessed it…..finely ground crickets.

The chips are gluten-free and are healthy, as they contain half as much fat as the popular chip brands. 

The founders of Six Foods claim that insects are efficient creatures for converting feed to food; cows and pigs take up much more resources, and you can’t easily grow them in cities.  One pound of beef takes 2,000 gallons of water and 25 bags of feed to produce.  To produce the same amount of cricket flour, it only takes 1 gallon of water and 2 bags of feed.  As scientists predict that the world’s demand for meat will double by 2050, eating crickets is an environmentally friendly thing to do.

What say you?  Would you be willing to trade in your Cheetos and Lays potato chips for “cricket-chips?”  Or, are they an “ooh, ick” to you???

Source: Organic Authority