Thursday in Grahamstown is garbage collection day and as happens there was more than one desperate person searching the refuse bags for food of any kind. The irony that it was World Food Day yesterday was not lost on me, as I’m sure it wasn’t on many others. With food prices continuing to rise, I started to think about alternative foods and if ‘eating bugs could save the world’.

 

Entamorphagy is the eating of bugs as food and if this became a common dietary practice, we could not only be saving the world, but saving ourselves. The pro’s of dining on insects means economical, nutrition and protein-rich food that keeps cholesterol low, while at the same time keeping the pest count down and, subsequently, reducing the use of harmful pesticides.

 

While the idea of chewing on a juicy mopani worm gives me the chills from the legs up, in Papua New Guinea sago grubs wrapped in banana leaves are considered a delicacy. Rice and wasps are the Japanese equivalent of bangers and mash, and in many African countries crickets, locusts and other grubs are like the Simba chips we buy at Pick ‘n Pay. In that case, with western countries being the only ones that don’t indulge in the resources at our fingertips (or in our gardens), should we be the ones who’re considered strange?

 

For many, seafood such as crab, shrimp, prawn and crayfish are treats to be reserved for special occasions, but are these not the insects of the ocean? With this in mind, as one environmentalist put it, “to eat bugs is better to be dead and be eaten by them!”