Eat insects, like they do in Africa
Prepare yourself for eating insects! The world population will increase up to 9.6 billion people by 2050, as you might know. There will not be enough meat in this world to meet the demand. Insects however, are a reasonable alternative. Agromisa describes how to find, collect and eat them.
Insects are healthy and above that: they are very efficient. Because they are cold blooded, they do not use energy from their food to maintain their body temperature. They don’t eat much and even produce 100 times less greenhouse gases than cattle do.
Insects
Insects are full of protein, so it can replace meat in the diet. And this is an important fact, given the fact that world meat consumption has increased almost threefold since 1970 and will even double by 2050.
Reconsidering our diets and food habits is essential. That’s why the Agromisa Foundation published a small and practical book in their series of Agrodoks about Edible Insects in Africa.
The book describes several insect species and how to find, collect, cook and prepare them.
Delicious on toast!
The palm weevil larvae, for example, lay their eggs in mature, healthy palm trees. You can find them by looking for a gallery dug by the larvae. If the gallery reaches the crown, the leaves turn yellow. You can notice them by a distinctive sour smell, released by the larvae. And, by putting an ear to the tree, you can hear them eating the inside of the trunk.
It’s only one small example. There’s many small descriptions about ways to find and even cultivate other insects, like mealworms, Caterpillars, bugs, grasshoppers and even termites. And there is different recipes for insects. I can recommend you the termite spread. It’s delicious on toast!
The book Edible Insects in Africa , An Introduction to Finding, Using and Eating Insects counts 82 pages and is written in English and published by Agromisa. The book can be bought for €15,- on their website.
But first, lets take a quick look in the book over here.
© Marc van der Sterren | Farming Africa