Locusts for Lunch
By: Kathleen Jerauld-Brack

Could bugs be the next cuisine trend?

Just imagine it: 'Restaurant Arthropod's'.

Now serving: Locust Louis; Mealy Bug Meatloaf; Centipede Souffle; Moth Broth; Mosquito Fahito au jus.; Chigger Juice.

Insects for Dinner?

No-no, not the squashed fly between the pages of your plastic menu or the little roach that scrambles out from under your plate in a restaurant, but the one that gets delivered in your dinner on purpose.

Consider the possibilities...

Arthropods, or organisms with jointed legs are clearly related to lobsters, crabs and other edible beings in the ocean. It's been determined that lobsters are actually sea-going cockroaches and in addition, lobster exoskeletons also have the same jointed legs and antennae as grasshoppers.

In comparison, grasshoppers should be more desirable than lobsters. Grasshoppers eat clean grass; lobsters eat sea garbage like dead fish and other remains on the murky ocean floor.

Of course we all eat some insects unknowingly. Aphids cling to lettuce leaves, and weevils and beetles can reside in flour and rice undetected. The FDA actually has a measurement of ‘acceptable’ insect presence in food.

You might consider the nutritional angle. Termites have considerably more protein than a steak, for example and that protein has more amino acids essential to our diet than any other animal.

Insects can be ‘farm raised’. You can breed them like cattle, and in a smaller space with less odor!

They could be marketed as a simple solution to world hunger. (Many nations already commonly eat insets, by the way.) There are over five million species roaming the earth, so we would definitely enjoy more variety in our dishes.

Rather than being crop destroyers, they would be the crop.

If you are curious, why don’t you pick up the book, 'Entertaining with Insects', and try out a few dishes at your next formal dinner party. And chefs, consider the colorful presentations you could make! Real butterflies……

I’ll bet that if you dipped them in chocolate you could get almost anyone to try one.

...We ate in a seafood restaurant last night and I sadly passed on the lobster tail. by Kathleen Brack

About The Author This article copyrighted by the author 4/15/2005. All rights reserved. Kathleen Jerauld-Brack. BFA Graphic Design and Fine Art. Is recipient of many Art and Literature Awards. She is also Webmaster of: http://www.BestPlacetoEat.com | http://www.BestRestaurants.us.

This article was posted on April 19, 2005

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