What’s for lunch? barbecued palm weevil larvae

Last night at dinner my seven-year-old son found a hair in his food. Cue disgust, laughter, barf sounds echoed around the table. Except the hair was mine. I’d just made dinner in a mad weeknight rush and forgotten to wear my hair net. Well, actually, I don’t ever wear a hair net, though there are some in these parts who wouldn’t mind if I did.

Now, I’m not thrilled to find hair in my food in a restaurant, but at home, it hardly seems to warrant the kind of revulsion it elicited around the family table.

Just wait until I start serving insects.

Eating bugs is good for you

I’ve eaten my fair share of insects, though mostly by mistake—up my nose and ears, in my mouth while planting trees in blackfly-infested swamps in Northern Ontario.

Photo by Katie Macaulay

Now, the United Nations has come out with a policy paper suggesting that eating insects may be the key to feeding our growing world. They’re rich in protein, vitamins and minerals and according to new research, farming insects produces far less greenhouse gas than livestock.

It’s hard to imagine convincing most Canadian kids of the merits of crunching on a handful of crickets at lunch, but 80% of the world’s countries already eat insects—locusts, crickets, ants, grubs and beetles.

Now if we could just come up with a way to harness the vitamin power of the black fly.