The Benefits of Eating Bugs
It would help you, it would help the planet, but what about the yuck factor?
Bill Broadbent started selling packaged, ready-to-eat insect products online five years ago after his son researched bug-eating and touted the nutritional and environmental benefits. “For fun, we put up a website,” Broadbent says. As sales took off, he formed a company with his sister, Susan Broadbent, in a barn next to his house in Lewiston, Maine. This year the company, Entosense, began wholesaling flavored crickets and other edible insects to small grocery stores, and the company now has a half-dozen employees and is in distribution talks with major grocery chains — one of many signs that bugs are creeping into American diets.
“Animal agriculture can’t keep up with the growing world population,” Broadbent says. “One of the solutions is edible insects. The more people accept it, the better it is for the world.”
Insects are part of a balanced diet in many countries, and Westerners who can stomach the thought may soon want to rely on them, too, as the growing global population is expected to outstrip food-production capabilities. Already around the world, and increasingly in the United States, everything from ants to scorpions to silkworms can be found fried à la carte, sprinkled into main courses, hidden in bread and…
