Reuters: Oddly Enough: Eating insects could help fight obesity, U.N. says

Reuters: Oddly Enough Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Eating insects could help fight obesity, U.N. says May 13th 2013, 15:44 Tweet Share this Email Print Various stages of beetles crawl around on the palm of a hand at an insect farm in Ermelo January 12, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Jerry Lampen By Catherine Hornby ROME | Mon May 13, 2013 11:44am EDT ROME (Reuters) - The thought of eating beetles, caterpillars and ants may give you the creeps, but the authors of a U.N. report published on Monday said the health benefits of consuming nutritious insects could help fight obesity. More than 1,900 species of insects are eaten around the world, mainly in Africa and Asia, but people in the West generally turn their noses up at the likes of grasshoppers, termites and other crunchy fare. The authors of the study by the Forestry Department, part of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said many insects contained the same amount of protein and minerals as meat and more healthy fats doctors recommend in balanced diets. "In the West we have a cultural bias, and think that because insects come from developing countries, they cannot be good," said scientist Arnold van Huis from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, one of the authors of the report. Eva Muller of the FAO said restaurants in Europe were starting to offer insect-based dishes, presenting them to diners as exotic delicacies. Danish restaurant Noma, for example, crowned the world's best for three years running in one poll, is renowned for ingredients including ants and fermented grasshoppers. As well as helping in the costly battle against obesity, which the World Health Organization estimates has nearly doubled since 1980 and affects around 500 million people, the report said insect farming was likely to be less land-dependent than traditional livestock and produce fewer greenhouse gases. It would also provide business and export opportunities for poor people in developing countries, especially women, who are often responsible for collecting insects in rural communities. Van Huis said barriers to enjoying dishes such as bee larvae yoghurt were psychological - in a blind test carried out by his team, nine out of 10 people preferred meatballs made from roughly half meat and half mealworms to those made from meat. (Reporting by Catherine Hornby; Editing by Philip Pullella and Mike Collett-White) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

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