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The Beaty Biodiversity Museum is Vancouver’s natural history museum. We work to promote a greater understanding of, and collective responsibility for, the biodiversity of BC, Canada, and the World. Come visit us on UBC campus - we’re located at 2212 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC. You can find more info at beatymuseum.ubc.ca. Follow us @beatymuseum on Twitter & Instagram and like us on Facebook. |
1. They are delicious and nutritious! In a blind tasting done by researchers most people enjoyed the taste of insects. Roasted insects taste nutty, many worms are spicy, crickets taste like shrimp, and certain stinkbugs have an essence of apple - just to name a few flavours. Insects are higher in protein, iron, and other nutrients than beef.
Tiger beetle from the Beaty Biodiversity Museum.
2. There are lots of them. 1 million species of insects have been identified and there are roughly 5 to 6 million species that are out there that haven't been identified yet. So many insects!
Beaty Biodiversity Museum insect display. Photo by Derek Tan.
3. You don't have to eat them whole. Can't get over popping an entire insect with its little legs, antennae and beady eyes into your mouth? Fear not! You can eat insect flour instead. Ground mealworms and grasshoppers make excellent flour for baking delicious things like muffins and loafs.
Golden-green stag beetles on a cake.
4. They are good for the environment. You can feel virtuous when you eat insects because you are making the world a better place. Insects require waaay less water, food, and space to raise than other protein (e.g. cows). Plus they don't emit huge amounts of greenhouse gasses.
Original photo by Flickr user Leszek Leszczynski with modifications.
5. You can wash them down with Big Rock Brewery's Grasshopper Wheat Ale at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum's Bugs & Beer night on Friday September 4th. Become a member ($35 for an adult) to enjoy this and other fun biodiversity related events (like our Biodiversity of Brewing Beer night).
So we've convinced you insects are delicious. Great! Just a heads up - don't go harvesting insects from your own backyard. Not all insects are edible - some are poisonous. Use a supplier who have vetted their insects as safe to consume (like Next Millennium Farms - an insect farm here in Canada).
