Proteins tips

Do not eat raw meat, especially of carnivores because of trichinae risk. This hair worm lives in the gut of certain mammals (pigs..) And can come in the meat.
Grasshoppers and worms are easier to outwit and overpower. Brightly colored or hairy bugs or toads, strange looking fish: hands off.
Skin of frogs and salamanders are often toxic.

Eating insects: mini bites

Insects (Insecta) are a class of arthropods (Arthropoda). Of these largest group of animals are almost a million species described.
They are identified by the (not always visible) three main parts: head, thorax (chest) and abdomen. At the head are the eyes, jaw parts and antennae. The thorax has legs and possibly wings. The abdomen contains the digestive, excretory, and reproductive organs, and a large part of the respiratory system, trachea or breathing tubes.
The propagation of insects is usually done by fertilization and outside the mother's body developing eggs.
Most insects make a transformation or metamorphosis by development from respectively larva or nymph to imago (adult insect).

Eating insects
On 23 September 2006, 1,747 people from Wageningen University established a world record eating insects. There were fried grasshoppers and mealworms (larvae of Yellow Mealworm (Tenebrio molitor)), fried with garlic, salt and pepper and tarts with mealworms on the map.

In 98 countries are insects on the menu. Eighty percent of the world eats 'fruits de terre' (earth fruit).
In Central Africa are insects for 70 to 90 percent of the population on the menu.
There are approximately 1,400 species of insects that are edible to humans. Of these, we find 24% in the Americas, 24% in Asia, 38% in Africa and only 2% in Europe.  About 250 species are consumed in Mexico alone.
If we in the West eat insects, it is usually by accident. However, they cannot be avoided in the production and processing of food. According to the official guidelines in the United States may therefore:
“Frozen Broccoli count 60 aphids, 200 grams of tomato ketchup contain three fruit fly larvae, 25 grams of curry powder 100 insect fragments, a tin of 100g mushrooms contain 74 mites ; 1 ounce fig paste 13 insect heads and 1 ounce of raisins contain 34 fruit flies."

Edible insects are with a content of 40 to 70 percent highly nutritious proteins in comparison with, for example maize, which has a protein content of only 10%.

There is up to four times more biomass below the ground than cattle that grazes on top.
For one kilogram of meat you have to give an animal ten kilogram of food. For one kilogram of cricket meat that is only two kilogram of food. You can also harvest much more efficient: from a cow we eat only 55 percent, from a cricket 80 percent. Eating insects is 20 times more environmentally friendly than eating meat: less water and food is needed to breed them and they emit far fewer greenhouse gases than cattle and pigs.

Similar to beef and pork: 100 g of dried insect meat contains 30 to 70 grams of protein and 4 to 60 grams of fats. In addition, insects are also full of vitamins and minerals! The harvesting of insects can be seen as a control method to limit pests. Watch out with pesticides !!

Insects are typically fried for consumption. What is on the menu?

Worldwide there is a lot of choice. But our Western eating habits are (still) limited in this area.

Casu Marzu (Sardinian for rotten cheese) is fermented, even tainted unpasteurized sheep milk eaten by worms and transformed into cheese. The maggots are colorless, approximately eight millimeters tall and can jump up to 15 centimeters. Appreciated by lovers.

Junebug soup was eaten until mid last century in France and Germany, the taste is a bit like lobster soup.
Discard the beetles wings and legs, searing in butter and cook in boiling beef or chicken broth. The soup is cleaned through a sieve and served as a broth, or beetles are first crushed in a mortar, and the soup is rubbed and bound with a roux and some egg yolks.

The Worldwide insect menu has many more options ...

“Put some sugar and fresh cream on a fly and she tastes like a blueberry.”(Edgar Watson Howe)

I used to be a doubter, but now I am no longer sure.