Flour Made From Bugs? Yep It's Real!
New flour made from ground up and dried insects is 1 group of researchers plan to help end world hunger.
Mohammad Ashour and his team of MBA students have created a rather unusual way to help end world hunger and malnutrition. They have created a process to make baking flour out of insects.
The first test subject, Grasshoppers.
The team intends on farming grasshoppers on a large scale in the near future in Mexico, where nearly four million people suffer from malnutrition.
Grasshoppers would produce a high protein flour that would be relatively easy to produce, especially in areas where farming wheat may not be easily achieved.
Grasshoppers may not be on most American dinner plates, but in other countries such as Mexico, it's very commonplace to see street vendors selling that at a high price. These vendors have to physically go find them and trap them. Farmed grasshoppers would be much cheaper.
Other parts of the world have the potential to produce other various types of insect flours. Insects being studied for this purpose include Palm Weevils, various Caterpillars, and various family members of the grasshopper such as Locusts.
If you look beyond the fact the you'd be eating flour made from insects, the flours made by this process would create a high protein food source for a population that desperately needs it.
Inset derived flours would also be a great substitute for people with wheat gluten allergies.
