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The Bottom Line Kids eat bugs all the time. Few if any symptoms are likely to occur. In fact, insects form a regular part of the diet for many human cultures. Though most ingestions of edible insects tend to be harmless, people who have shellfish allergies should avoid eating insects due to the potential for cross-reactivity My child just ate a beetle." "I think I swallowed a stinkbug." "My kids were eating ants." Poison Control answers LOTS of calls about people who swallow insects of all kinds. Callers don't know whether to be worried, disgusted, or (sometimes) amused. If you're...

Be careful when buying “health food” as some corporations have already begun quietly adding cricket “flour” and other insect-based ingredients to products labeled “sustainable” and “nutritious.” One company called Actually Foods is now selling a Cheddar Cheese Puffs product that contains “organic cricket flour” in the “puff” ingredients list. The product, which comes from Canada, is labeled using the terms “nutritious,” “sustainable,” and “delicious.” The Cheddar Cheese Puffs product from Actually Foods is also branded as being high in protein because it is “powered by crickets” – the suggestion being that crickets are a “superfood.” It turns out that Entomo...

The raising of livestock consumes two-thirds of the planet's farmland, and is a major source of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, tons of edible, sustainable protein swarms all around us, free for the taking. In a new policy paper being considered by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Belgian entomologist Arnold van Huis makes the sensible recommendation that the western world eat more insects. Farming edible insects like mealworms and crickets would produce far less greenhouse gas -- 10 times less methane and 100 times less nitrous oxide -- than the large mammals we currently farm. Insects are metabolically much more...