Posted on 04/21/2011 2:34:45 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
VIENTIANE (AFP) – Serge Verniau is a man with a mission: to persuade the world to swap the chicken wings and steaks on their plates for crickets, palm weevils and other insects rich in protein and vitamins.
Verniau, the Laos representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), is only half-joking when he says his dream is "to feed the big metropolises from Tokyo to Los Angeles, via Paris" with the small arthropods.
He plans to present the lessons drawn from a pilot project to the world at a conference on edible insects, probably in 2012.
"Most of the world's population will live in urban areas. Trying to feed the whole planet enough protein from cows won't work," Verniau told AFP.
It is not by chance that the dream was born in landlocked Laos, one of the world's poorest countries.
Almost one quarter of its population of six million people, and nearly 40 percent of children below the age of five years old, suffer from malnutrition, according to figures from the Laos government.
The typical rice-based diet provides insufficient nutrients for development -- a shortfall that could be filled by insects, highly rich in protein and vitamins.
Eaten as snacks, grilled or fried, they are already part of Laos cuisine, but most people do not know how to breed them, said Oudom Phonekhampheng, dean of the faculty of agriculture at the National University of Laos.
"They just take them in the wild and eat them, and then it is finished and destroyed. They have to think about the future," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Crunchy Burgers Drive-thrus!
Plates of fried insects ready to eat, including crikets and grasshopers, are seen here at a local market in Vientiane. Raising crikets for foods is seen as a solution to the malnutrition in the poor landlock country where a great number of people, especially children, suffer from it. (AFP/File/Hoang Dinh Nam)
“Let them eat.......weevils!”
Naw.....doesn’t work for me.
Corn could help - oh, but wait, we are putting that in our gas tanks.
ever tried ‘em deep-fried with a spicy sauce dip.. umm mm mmm
Here’s an idea: feed the insects to chickens, who naturally eat them, and eat chicken.
If you’re not producing enough food for the people you’re also probably not producing enough food to provide enough bugs to be food for the people.
When the mood strikes I “gross out” my grandkids by munching on bugs when we are swimming. For the record they don’t taste like chicken.
Just wouldn’t be thanksgiving in Laos without the family gathered ‘round the table and pa carving up a big old dung beetle. Save room for the roach pie!
Nothing like people placing themselves in competition with Bats, Birds, and ,anteaters.
“Corn could help - oh, but wait, we are putting that in our gas tanks.”
Instead of “filling up” when you use corn are you “stalking up?” Seriously, though, why is it the dumbbells in the US legislature (by any estimate, the most corrupt bastards anywhere on the planet) would come up with the notion of using the most useful ag product on the planet to make gas out of, when you got a whole lot of ground full of dead dinosaur goo?
This is NOT coincidence. We will soon be completely at the Gubmint’s mercy ... and they got none. TEA Party or Die.
A roachburger and fries, please.
Fried meal worms are pretty good.
Let them eat bugs!!
I am sure the poor will be thankful
I like your idea. In the summer we put a light out for the chickens and they feast on them.
That just made up my mind for sure...no thank you.
Thailand???
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