Eating Insects

[Tim Gier]

Entomologist gets grant to develop food based on insects

Gainesville entomologist Aaron Dossey wants to feed starving children with bugs to prevent malnutrition, and now he has a $100,000 grant to give it a shot.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded Dossey the grant Wednesday to develop an insect-based food for children in famine-stricken areas of the world. Dossey plans to create a paste or other food product using insects such as crickets, which he said are more accessible than other ingredients in places lacking resources.

"Insects are a lot more sustainable and at least theoretically can be farmed in places that don't have a lot of access to water or resources required to raise cattle," he said.

The Gates Foundation awarded more than 100 grants Wednesday as part of a $100 million initiative funding projects that address global health problems in novel ways. Successful projects have the chance to receive a follow-up grant worth up to $1 million.

Dossey is a research entomologist with the U.S Department of Agriculture in Gainesville. He formed his own company, All Things Bugs, to apply for the grant. He noted that members of some African cultures already eat insects and that bugs have amino acids, fats and nutrients not found in plant-based foods.

He's planning to try crickets, fly larvae and mealworms as ingredients in the paste. He'll use insects mass raised for pets and laboratories, not insects caught in the wild.

Please read the whole article here.

What do you think? If insects haven't any meaningfully conscious lives that they value, then wouldn't feeding starving people on insects be a good idea?