Have you ever tried eating bugs before? Has anyone mentioned it to you? Either your friends are just messing with you, or they have actually done it in the past. Though wriggly worms and chirping crickets may disgust you, some people in the world eat them as a delicacy! I tried them on November 10, 2015 at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair (RAWF), and I’m not going to lie, they were pretty good! Just like chips.
We met a representative from Entomo Farms. Even though it’s their first time at the RAWF, they have been in the cricket food business for more than 10 years. I decided to try a couple of mealworms. They tasted like shrimp chips and are very healthy for your body!
According to Entomo Farm’s website, crackers, “fruit” gummies and most processed, packaged snacks are not helping kids stay focused, or anything that they say they do. Most school snacks are filled with sugar and very little nutritional value and provide no real long term energy contribution. Crickets, however, contain lots of protein, vitamins, nutrients, and other stuff. You can put cricket powder in almost anything, and if you don’t tell them, people won’t know that they’re eating bugs!
When we tried to interview Jarrod Goldin, the representative from Entomo Farms, he joked, “You have to try some before you can interview me!”
In Goldin’s opinion, crickets are very good for the environment because compared to other foods with a lot of protein such as beef, they save a lot of water. When we asked what crickets help with in your body, he answered that they contain a lot of protein, iron, fiber, Omega three and calcium, “so they have a lot of vitamins in them.”
Goldin said that they serve crickets to people who buy it from their website, organic stores, restaurants, and other companies buy them and make protein bars, chips, noodles, or other things out of them. The purpose of cooking with crickets is to improve your health, to eat delicious food, and to eat things that are sustainable for the planet. “It’s important that the food we eat and the things we drink help the earth,” he said.
When we asked where they get all the bugs from, Goldin told us that they farm them in a place called Norwood. “So it takes about six weeks from when they’re a little baby until they’re a full grown cricket.”
This fun experience at The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair was really educational and cool. One thing that I really liked was a ride that showed you how it felt to try to ride on a real bull! There was a fake bull body in the middle of a bouncy area and you had to try to hold on to the black rope for as long as you can without falling off. It was extremely hard because the bull kept on waving and bucking back and forth. My highest record was only 11 seconds! I hope you take my advice and go there. I learned so much and I hope I can go next year!
