‘Like potato chips’: he feeds his family ants, crickets and cockroaches, and wants you to consider them as meat substitutes too

Bugs are a cheap source of protein, vitamins and minerals, have a low carbon footprint and use less land and water than livestock

Biologist Federico Paniagua, who grows edible insects on his Costa Rican farm, invites us to join him for lunch

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Biologist Federico Paniagua and family eat insects at their farm in Grecia, Costa Rica. Three years ago, he replaced the animal protein in their meals with ants, crickets, cockroaches, beetles and the like, all of which he farms in the Central American country. Photo: Reuters/Juan Carlos Ulate

Published: 5:00am, 6 Oct 2019Updated: 9:01am, 6 Oct 2019

At his home in rural Costa Rica, biologist Federico Paniagua joins his family at the dining table to devour several types of insects that he raised on his farm and whose flavour he compares to potato chips.

The head of the University of Costa Rica’s Insects Museum decided three years ago to replace animal protein in his diet with crickets, ants, cockroaches, beetles and other insects – and wants to encourage others to do the same.

“Insects are delicious,” he says at his farm in Sarchi, about 30 miles (50km) from the Central American country’s capital, San José.

“You can sit and watch a soap opera, watch the football game, do any activity with a plate full of insects. Eat them one by one, with a glass of soda … they’ll go down well,” says Paniagua.

Federico Paniagua, the head of the Insects Museum in Costa Rica, farms edible insects (above) on his farm. Photo: Reuters/Juan Carlos Ulate

Edible crickets at Paniagua’s farm in Costa Rica. Photo: Reuters/Juan Carlos Ulate

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has counted more than 1,900 insect species that are edible.