A quick Google search will reveal a few places where you can find bugs to eat. But, what you'll also find is a 2013 UN report Edible Insects: Food and Feed Security that states that eating bugs is a healthier bet than eating red meat. The report revealed that around two billion people in the world already consume bugs and that there are about 1,900 species of edible insects.

Several communities in Mexico, China, Africa and India already consume bugs as they are part of the environment. “Cultures that eat bugs eat them because they have insects in abundance. These are usually tropical countries. Their attitude is more of a ‘eat whatever you can hunt’. We don’t have to go hunting and find food. But I’m trying to get more people to eat bugs since the 80s and they are finally responding,” says David George Gordon, popularly known as The Bug Chef. Apart from this, farming is a Western concept. In several regions, it's difficult to farm either due to lack of resources or shortage of water. 

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In Toronto, Colombian Street Food at Dundas West is a bright red shipping container turned into a street-food shack. Owner and chef Natalia, known as Cookie Martinez because of her previous business where she baked cookies, fries Cricket Empanadas and packs up a Cricket Brittle. With a close eye on the pot of sugar being caramelized for the brittle, Martinez explained that crickets are rich in protein and are healthier to eat and simple to cook as well. Martinez began cooking with crickets when Future Food Salon, a group she is part of, began making people aware about the benefits of eating insects. Martinez whipped up a seven-course meal made with insects and served it to adventurous guests who were hungry not just for a good meal, but also seeked some knowledge on the affair of eating bugs. 

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The benefits of eating bugs though, are several. The UN report states that consuming insects helps save water. Cricket farmer Jarrod Goldin of Entomo Farms in Norwood, Ontario explains,"Crickets have a lot of protein and so does a steak. But, farming cattle is much harder.” It takes 22,000 litres of water and 10,000 grams of feed to rear cattle. Chicken requires 2,300 litres of water and 2,500 grams of feed to be reared. While in comparison, crickets use less than a litre of water and 1,700 grams of feed is sufficient for them. Goldin adds that if a family of four began consuming crickets once a week for a year, they would save the world 650,000 litres of water.

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What's more? Insects also feed on waste materials. Jakub Dzamba, who farms crickets in his basement-level garage, feeds chicken stock to his crickets. Dzamba who had previously built a counter-top reactor so that people could farm crickets on their kitchen counter-tops, has fed any kind of food waste generated from the kitchen. Most insects produce fewer greenhouse gasses than livestock. Cockroaches and termites are the only insects that produce methane gas. Insects can be consumed by humans for food and also by animals that humans raise for food. And, insect farming can provide alternative livelihood to several across the globe. As insect farming is a type of farming that requires fewer resources and almost zero labour, it can be carried out as an alternative means of farming by women in the family. Dzamba, who plans to build a farm inside a shipping container thanks to grants by Humber College, hopes to be able to set up similar such containers in Mexico and Africa. As most men have to travel far to farm in Mexico and don't return home for days, the women could farm crickets in the shipping containers as a backyard activity and also generate additional income for the family. 

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But, the benefits of eating insects aren't simply limited to improving the environment. Several reports indicate that if rural communities are encouraged to eat insects more than they already consume, this could perhaps help solve food hunger. However, there's a difference in opinion,"the Western world does not have a hunger problem. The ones who do, already consume bugs. But yes, if you give bugs to a starving man, it will help,” says Gordon. 

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One such example was reported by BBC. In Burkina Faso in Africa, where the Shea Caterpillar is consumed for nutrition, as malnourishment and starvation is prevalent. As unfortunately the shea caterpillar can me found for consumption only for few months in a year, a local is trying to make it available for longer. Kahitouo Hien who lives in Ouagadougou is an agrochemist and an entrepreneur; and not is the CEO of Faso Pro. Hien's company has organized people in rural areas to collect these caterpillars which are high in protein, vitamin and iron. The caterpillars are brought to a factory set up in Ouagadougou and are boiled, processed and packaged so that they can be available for consumption for up to 18 months. A 2015 SMART nutrition survey revealed that 30 per cent of children in Burkina Faso are chronically malnourished. The caterpillars can prove to be a good source of nourishment, besides the fact that collecting them helps the locals make money as well, which Hien estimates as USD 100 per week compared to their spending which is USD two per week. To ensure that the caterpillars are available for consumption for a longer period, Hien has joined hands with other scientists to study their life cycle and breed them all year.  Hien has already found a way to shorten the life cycle of the caterpillars so that more generations can be bread. The next step is to set up a feed and farming the insects, which Hien hopes will also help generate jobs for local women.  

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So, while livestock may provide a lot of nourishment and protein, there's a reason why insects are beneficial in countries where starvation and malnutrition is wide-spread. The Western world is touting bugs as the next superfood and the UN report has proved that insects don’t contain many calories. Eating bugs can be nutritional as they have three times the protein you get from beef. They are low in fat and have more iron than spinach and more calcium than milk. Insects also have 20 times more vitamin B12 than a pound of beef; and have all the nine essential amino acids.

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Despite the benefits, Dzamba says that a lot of traditional insect consumers, stop consuming bugs once they rise up the economic chain. "Once people can afford meats like chicken, fish or beef, they stop consuming bugs. It's been studied that this is because of status as consuming bugs is considered for the poor," he says. While Gordon is also of the same view, his cooking workshops have helped make 'eating bugs' trendy. He says that a few years ago, no one would come forward for a tasting, but now people at the workshops are willing to try what he has cooked and have several questions about cooking bugs at home. And that's how chefs like Martinez are sourcing crickets from Dzamba or Entomo Farms and stirring a rage among adventurous eaters. "It's very simple to cook crickets. For the brittle, all I do is roast them a little before adding them to caramelized sugar," she says. While Martinez has read through several recipes by Gordon, who cooks with scorpions, beetles and whatnot, she has till now limited herself to cooking with crickets, grasshoppers and meal worms. 

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But as more people crave for the crawly superfoods, chefs are experimenting. You'll find cricket chips, cookies made with cricket flour, Bolognese sauce made with meal worms, hot dogs and tacos topped with crunchy crickets and fried grasshoppers as bar snacks. Gordon says that most of these generally taste nutty and it's hard not to get addicted to them. As Western chefs are coming up with foods that their clients can ease into like cricket granola bars, chocolate-dipped mealworms and more; traditional home-cooks have recipes passed through generations.

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In India's north-eastern provinces of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, rural tribes who consume ants and silkworms because they are easily available, have very different ways to eat them. Water bugs are crushed along with garlic cloves and whole green chillies to make a chutney (dipping sauce). Silkworm pupae are stir-fried with few spices for flavour and eaten as sides. Different communities around the world, eat insects in their own style. Cockroaches and other bugs on a stick are popular in several south-east Asian countries. 

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As the world requires more resources, farming meat that requires fewer resources can help provide food and feed security.