What’s tasty, abundant and high in protein? Bugs! Although less common outside the tropics, entomophagy, the practice of eating bugs, was once extremely widespread throughout cultures. You may feel icky about munching on insects, but they feed about 2 billion people each day (Mmm, fried tarantulas). They also hold promise for food security and the environment. Emma Bryce makes a compelling case for dining on bugs.
Watch:
Answer the questions:
1. Which bugs have been consumed for centuries?
2. What did ancient Greeks think of cicadas?
3. What’s the reason for our rejection of bugs (as food)?
4. How do we feel about insects today?
5. Which countries are the keenest consumers of bugs and why?
6. Why are insects healthy?
7. Should one eat bugs if he/she suffers from anemia?
8. How do bugs taste?
9. Why does farming insects (for food) have less environmental impact than livestock farms do?
10. What can insects be reared on?
Glossary
- to forage – to seek; to hunt; to wander or go in search of provisions
- to follow suit – to do the same thing
- scrumptious – (of food) extremely tasty; delicious
- to ripple – to move across
- to simmer – to stew gently below or just at the boiling point
- untapped – (of a supply of something valuable) not yet used or taken advantage of
- to drizzle – to let a liquid fall on food in a small stream or in small drops
- to rear – to breed and raise (an animal) for use
- to recoil – to move back because of fear or disgust
- galore – in great amounts or numbers
Practice makes perfect
Fill in the gaps in the extract of the article: Edible Bug Industry Hopes Crickets and Kin are the Next Sushi with prepositions below:
on for to in as
over with onto from under
(…) Just like raw tuna is a favorite of foodies everywhere, Robert Nathan Allen foresees a day when crickets will make their way 1. …… consumers’ plates.
A growing need 2. ….. more food sources as well as a desire to treat animals more humanely have proponents predicting entomophagy, or eating insects, will eventually spread more heavily to western and developed countries. They envision pancakes made 3. ….. cricket flour or falafel chocked full of mealworm goodness will be just as desirable as sushi.
“Sushi took 30, 40 years to really become a normal thing, but kale took like five years and kale’s not even very tasty,” said Allen, head of Austin, Texas-based Little Herds, a nonprofit founded to educate the public 4. …… the nutritional and environmental benefits of edible insects.
Allen and about 150 others are gathering at Wayne State University in Detroit through Saturday to talk about edible bugs and how to grow the nascent industry. The conference is being billed 5. ….. the first of its kind in the United States.
They want to overcome what one speaker called thusene “yuck factor,” a feeling shared by many in the United States and other developed countries. 6. …… ants and beetle larvae eaten by tribes in Africa 7. …… crispy-fried locusts enjoyed in Thailand, almost 2,000 insect species are dined on by about two billion people globally today, according to a 2013 United Nations report. With the world’s population growth indicating food production will need to almost double by 2050, people need to check their revulsion and give bugs a second look, the report said.
Since food scientist Lee Cadesky envisions a huge food sector 8. ….. time, he and his brother founded C-fu Foods in Toronto, an ingredient company that makes meat, dairy and egg alternatives from insects. 9. ….. the brand name One Hop Kitchen, they will launch this week the sale of two kinds of insect Bolognese pasta sauce made with mealworms and crickets as the stand in for the traditional ground beef ingredient. Cadesky said it fooled most consumers in taste tests at food trade shows.
Edible bugs are already gaining traction with niche markets like those wanting a gluten free diet or wanting to better protect the environment because farming insects uses less land, water and feed, and results 10. ….. lower greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions, industry officials said.
Bugs also offer higher protein than other meat alternatives like soy or even some meats, they said. (…)
To read the whole article/check your answers, go to:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/edible-bug-industry-hopes-crickets-and-kin-are-the-next-sushi/
Key: 1. onto; 2. for; 3. with; 4. on; 5. as; 6. from ; 7. to; 8. over; 9. under;10. in
Discuss
- What springs to mind when you hear the word ‘insect’?
- Why are some people afraid of bugs?
- What’s your scariest insect moment?
- How would you feel about eating bugs?
- Are insects the answer to our food crisis?
Explore more to create your own teaching-learning experience!
Eat Bugs! It’s What’s For Dinner
Read:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2023/01/14/eat-bugs-its-whats-for-dinner/?sh=42a54e2772ac
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