Why we need to eat crickets
[Music]
our food choices are really poor
in fact they’re terrible they’re fueling
climate change
and they’re also making us unhealthy now
that’s the bad news
the good news is we can actually do
something about it
so in the uk actually 60 of adults are
now classified as being
obese or overweight in fact the nhs
recorded a 23
increase in hospital admissions where
the key
factor was people being overweight or
obese
that’s bad news that contrasts with
other people in the
around the globe who are short of water
and short of food and two billion people
around the world live with water
scarcity
500 million people are undernourished
and to make these bad food choices we’ve
actually created a farming industry now
that’s starting to have a devastating
impact
on the environment on our planet
over three quarters of the world land
surface has now been impacted by human
activity
leaving little room for wildlife or even
ecosystem
services the farmland itself
is generating a quarter of the
greenhouse gases
that we produce as humans making it
very hard to hit our targets of net zero
emissions
half of that greenhouse gas emissions is
down to the animals that we
consume as humans and half of all the
crops grown
in this country are grown to feed those
animals
so listening to that you might think the
answer is for all of us to become vegans
well i don’t think it’s as simple as
that soil
is the second largest store of carbon
after oceans in the world
and it’s been degraded at an
ever-increasing rate
and that’s because we’re demanding more
from it so we’re increasing our yields
looking for more crops and getting rid
of the the wild areas
on our soil that actually leads to soil
degradation
and that releases carbon into the
atmosphere
plus it’s actually very difficult to get
all the nutrients that we’re going to
need as humans
from plants alone in fact if you want to
get a complete protein so that’s a
protein with
all the amino acids that we need and
can’t make ourselves
we need a number of different plant
sources to do that
and in fact there’s some trace vitamins
and minerals which we cannot get from
plants alone
so we need to think of other things on
top of that
the future is also looking quite
difficult by
2050 the un is predicting
that we will need 70 percent more
protein
than we’re currently producing so that’s
70 more protein than we’re currently
producing
so where is that going to come from if
we use traditional proteins
then we’re going to contribute continue
to contribute to
climate change and actually
diminish wildlife further that might
sound
insurmountable but actually i do
think there’s something that we can all
do
and that is to eat insects
and more specifically to eat crickets
now i think crickets are going to be
answer to
many of our problems so let me explain
why
insects are not a new food humans have
been eating them for thousands of years
look at their ancient greeks they ate
insects
the romans did as well and in fact if
you go on holiday to thailand even now
you’ll often come across insects being
sold in street food
two billion people around the world
actually consume insects as part of
their everyday diet
so for them it’s nothing new we have a
long history of consuming insects as
humans right now commercial farms are
being set up in europe and north america
to farm crickets for human consumption
this is quite different from catching
crickets in the field
because there’s a real emphasis on high
quality
and hygienic conditions and to suit
western tastes
these crickets are then processed into
cricut flour
or cricket powder something like this
and it can be added to almost any food
and people the reason why people do that
is because of its superfood qualities
now what makes them a superfood well the
oxford english dictionary
defines superfoods those foods that are
nutrient rich
and contribute to the health and
well-being
and that’s exactly what crickets do
they’re right up there with
gojo berries turmeric kale even
and there’s real so i thought i’d kind
of go through six key
nutritional points about crickets to
illustrate that
so the first one is protein they’re
really high in protein
so they have 65 to 70 protein content
which makes them much higher than beef
second they’re high in iron
now this there’s two types of iron hem
iron
and non-hemp iron the non-hem iron is
the stuff that you get from plants
the hem iron is the stuff you get from
animals and that’s the stuff you want
because it’s easily absorbable
and that means crickets have hem iron
that’s really good news because a
quarter of the global population
is anemic so well done
crickets the third point is
they’re very high in vitamin b12 vitamin
b12
you can only source that from animal
products
they actually have three times the
content of vitamin b12 than beef
so go crickets fourthly
they’re high in antioxidant activity
antioxidant activities prevent delay
and stop oxidization of different
compounds within our body
so it’s really important to help prevent
and increase
immunity against bugs
and they have five times as much
antioxidant activity
as orange juice number five
they’re high in prebiotic fibers now
that’s completely different from
probiotics
prebiotics are the food the good food
for the good
bugs in your gut and that’s really
important
because our modern lifestyle of
consuming takeaways
high sugar food high carb food high fat
food even
you know is food for the bad bugs in our
stomach and then can make our stomach go
out of balance and when that happens
it leads to discomfort kind of make us
very lethargic
and give us headaches actually it can
also cause mental health issues
so keeping our micro gut biome
imbalance is really important and
because crickets are packed with
prebiotic fibers they can help in that
department as well
and finally so the sixth time
they’re actually full of trace vitamins
and minerals
now that’s really important because that
helps us metabolize
the nutrients that we’re consuming so
they have
plenty of zinc copper manganese
magnesium to help with that whole
process
so when you listen to that you’re
probably thinking wow i understand
that’s great that’s a really good
superfood
but what about the environment well
they’re
actually have a really low carbon
footprint
so they’re good for the environment as
well
so let me just kind of illustrate that
for every
kg of cricket protein produced
requires less energy less input
less feed less water than beef
chicken or salmon so for example
a a kg of
cricket protein will only produce
um one gram of greenhouse gas
whereas a kg of beef protein
will produce 3 000 grams
of greenhouse gas just think what that’s
going to be doing to our environment
so we’ve got less of everything there
so actually thinking about it listening
to all of that
you’re probably thinking actually yeah
crickets sound
like a really good superfood but what do
they taste like
they have a mild nutty taste
it’s definitely not unpleasant and
smells slightly nutty as well so they’ve
got that nutty around me
they carry flavors really well so you
can add them to all sorts of foods
and that’s something that we need to do
increasingly
to actually make sure that we’re able to
feed the world’s population
so next time you’re walking down
nantucket high street
thinking about the food that you should
buy please look for food that has
crickets in
because they might be small but they
pack a really powerful nutritional punch
and will be part of the big solution to
solving climate change