That's Fit

One day, you might find yourself ordering via the drive-through or your friendly restaurant server not a hamburger, not a slab of ribs, not a grilled piece of chicken. Nope. It might be a giant water bug, a caterpillar, or a spicy Mexican grasshopper you'll choose.

An adventurous eater, or Gastronaut, is what you'll be called if bugs become your food of choice. And a healthy eater you'll surely become.

Insects are nutritious little critters, says David Gracer, a self-described nature boy, in this Discover magazine article. Although they don't contain quite as much protein as beef or chicken -- 100 grams of grasshoppers have about 20 grams of protein, compared with 27 grams in the same amount of lean ground beef -- but they do contain one-third the amount of fat found in beef. Water bugs have four times as much iron.

Not only will your health soar when you switch from meats to bugs, but the environment will benefit too. Gracer says traditional livestock such as cows, pigs, and chickens have a huge negative impact on the environment. For example, livestock production is responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions -- that's more than what is produced by transportation worldwide. Bugs also require little water -- a moist paper towel in the bottom of a bug tank is enough to quench a bug's thirst for a week but it takes 869 gallons of water to produce a third of a pound of beef, the equivalent of one hamburger.

Large mammals are just plain wasteful, Gracer says. And that's why he's urging folks to eat insects. At least 1,400 species of insects are eaten around the world -- why not jump on the bandwagon yourself? OK, maybe not. But perhaps in the future, the bug experts will figure out how to extract the protein and oil from insects for use in the manufacturing of more palatable food products. Would you be game then? Me? Not so sure.