Lead: de-bugging nutrition

Fancy chewing on a caterpillar or making a meal of crunchy crickets? The idea might disgust you now, but the United Nations is hoping to change the public perception of eating bugs.

Switching to an insect-rich diet could not only be good for your health, but have environmental and economic benefits, too.

The UN's 187-page report, Edible Insects, makes a convincing case: insects grow fast, thrive on the waste of many industrial processes, use substantially less land and water than other livestock, produce less pollution than cattle or pigs and they are good for you. Packed with protein, fibre, good fats and minerals, the report hails insects as a healthy and nutritious alternative to mainstream staples, such as beef, pork and chicken.

The purpose of the study was to answer the question: how best to feed the nine billion people who will be on the planet by 2050?

According to the report, two billion people are already eating insects - bugs are an integral part of the diet in many parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, South America and Mexico.

There are more than 1,900 insect species around the world which have been documented as edible, hundreds of which are being eaten. The report found the insects most commonly consumed by humans were beetles (31 per cent), caterpillars (18 per cent) and bees, wasps and ants (14 per cent), followed by grasshoppers, locusts and crickets (13 per cent).