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Would you eat ? Most people turn their noses up at this kind of thing, some get an overwhelming sense of nausea, and one (usually very cool) ´óÏó´«Ã½ channel controller ran squealing across the room when I dropped a roasted into his hands. This is a pretty normal reaction here in the UK, where our is restricted to munching the regurgitation of , (pink-purple food colouring E120) and the of insect fragments in flour. But I think that insects have been given a bad press by (few people eat them uncooked, for starters) and I’m going to try to change your mind about bug-munching. Here goes:

Taste
There are some surprisingly delicious bugs around. My favourites are dry-fried Burmese bamboo grubs, which have an extraordinary enlivening sweetness similar to Jerusalem artichokes. Next best are Mexican chappulines (grasshoppers roasted with chilli, salt and lime), which make a fantastic sour-spicy snack to eat with a cold beer. are available in the UK as a gimmicky snack, but they pack a fantastic pungent taste similar to smokey bacon.

Save the planet?
Insects are tremendously efficient at converting vegetation such as leaves (much of which we can’t get any nutritional value from) into edible protein. compared to 4:1 an upwards for insects, and that grain is grown on land that could, theoretically, be used to grow more resource-efficient food for humans. As the world population heads towards , entomophagy could be a potential solution to some of the worlds food issues.

Much of the world already eats insects
Insects already have a . When you venture past the cosy borders of the UK you find that they are available in markets from Thailand to South Africa and across much of Central and South America. They command a high price in Mexico, where edible flies and ant eggs are highly prized.

They are healthy
Most insects contain .

You’ll eat them eventually - may as well start now
Insect protein is cheap to produce. Animal protein will become more expensive as it begins to better reflect the cost of production and the load it makes on the planet’s resources. Eventually we’ll see bug-burgers in the shops and you’ll buy them not because you prefer them, but because a bug-burger will cost £5, while a beef burger costs £25. Oh, and they are likely to become .

And the downsides? Well, some religions forbid the eating of some insects, with kosher rules being some of the most explicit (although ). In the UK, edible insects are calorie-neutral (it takes more energy to collect a bucket of bugs than you gain by eating them). In the future, though, we could farm them in the UK or .

So would you? Have you? And why shouldn’t we eat insects?Ìý

P.S the title of this piece is taken from . Stefan Gates is a ´óÏó´«Ã½ presenter and food writer.