Bugs

the "bugs are good for you so eat them because we green types are promoting them for peons to eat instead of hamburgers" articles are popping up again.

Best Answer: from Dave Barry's blog.

WE'VE BEEN SEEING VARIATIONS OF THIS STORY FOR MORE THAN 25 YEARS, AND THE ANSWER IS STILL NO

Would you consider replacing your favourite meat dish with insects, either for the taste, or for the health benefits? A U.S. researcher studying their effect on health advocates insects as a potentially nutritious and tasty snack.

Help yourselves, researchers.

-------------------

Well, survivalists ate grasshoppers like their grandparents did in the good old days.

but as this Wired article notes, even in Mexico, few of them are actually harvested and eaten.

here, they do eat crickets, but it is not an every day thing. and in Africa, they ate caterpillars and flying ants, but again usually as a snack to supplement their diet, not as an every day thing.

a survey in (the very poor country of) Laos gives you an idea of how little insects are eaten:

first the article cites that usual: look at the millions of people who eat insects, so you should too quote:

At least 2 billion people globally eat insects (over 1900 edible species) though this habit is regarded negatively by others. There is a limited amount of data on the perception and consumption of insects.

then they do a survey in a very poor rural country where presumably people don't have a lot of KFC's or Jolibees down the street, and you find the reality:

Results A total of 1059 adults (Sex ratio F/M: 1.2, 30 ethnic groups), and 256 vendors were enrolled. A total of 1025 (96.8%) lay people were currently insect consumers, 135 (13.0%) daily or weekly consumers, and 322 (31.1%) consumed several times per month. For the majority (575, 55.6%) the consumption was infrequent (less than a few times per year) and only 22 (2%) had never eaten insects.

and the trend is decreasing.

as for solving the malnutrition problem:

when people are hungry, they eat all sorts of things. That doesn't mean they will eat them if there is an alternative.

growing, collecting and distributing and then getting people to buy them, which means they have to be sold cheaply.

so since we moved here, Lolo ate crickets exactly once: and he had to request one of our farmers to get the crickets for our cook to eat, because it wasn't something usually sold in the Palenke.



in contrast, BBQ intestines, chicken feet, and Balut are sold all over the place.