To stay alive, some African countries are encouraging people to eat insects to survive the crisis, is it really reliable?

Insect diet is at least quite popular, after all, they are much simpler means of obtaining, and in many cases do not need to be farmed, belong to the trade as long as the cost of time, even if the scale of farming, the cost of farming bugs is also quite low, but many people are naturally reject insects, resulting in this diet simply can not be promoted.

But the diet of eating insects does not seem to be anything unusual, although we go to a night market, can see a lot of people selling fried insects, and also particularly expensive. For us, food made of insects is more of a fun dish, but for some countries in Africa, an insect diet may have to be a staple food.

A £50,000 British aid project in the Democratic Republic of Congo is putting African caterpillars, migratory locusts, and black gadflies on the population's menu.

Insects in the Congo

The idea first started as an experiment in the North and South Kivu provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo for the period March-December 2022. This region is quite poor, but already considered good in Congo, because the local livestock industry is not well developed, but at least it exists, but the local population is growing so fast that livestock can't support so many people, and it costs water to raise livestock.

Twenty-three species of insects have been identified locally as edible, and they will be collected according to the seasons, with no intention of trying to breed them yet. These include the African palm weevil, which is very common in the area, garbage beetles, termites, and crickets. I got a bit of a head rush just hearing about it.

The promotion is funded by the Catholic Overseas Development Agency, a charity in England and Wales, which has been controversial since the project began, with many feeling that they are asking poor Africans to eat insects to satisfy their "lust for power" in a patronizing manner.

In response, the organization is aggrieved, saying, "It is completely wrong to claim that the program encourages people to eat insects, which we would prefer to raise locally as a nutritional supplement rather than a staple food, and would later like to encourage the raising of insects as feed similar to artificially farmed fish."

Insects in Zimbabwe

While that project was underway in Congo, another development project was underway in Zimbabwe. They are using cola bean worms in the porridge they serve in schools to give children a higher level of nutrition, a porridge that has the benefit of being rich in important vitamins and minerals. Zimbabwe is heavily dependent on maize and their daily diet is severely deficient in essential minerals, amino acids, and fatty acids. The worms, which are common in rural Zimbabwe, would have been consumed before the project began.

The aid program will be funded with £300,000 and implementers plan to feed poor children between the ages of 7 and 11 in the southern town of Kwanda and the capital Harare. This is just the first phase of the project and they will run a randomized controlled trial to see if children who eat breakfast do better at school and if they become healthier in terms of weight.

Postscript

Entomologist Dr. Sarah Beynon believes that aid programs that promote the consumption of insects are "a sure way to save lives and improve nutrition for the poorest people on the planet," and she also believes that people in developed countries should be encouraged to include insects in their diets.

She also believes that people in developed countries should be encouraged to include insects in their diets. She is indeed a rather idealistic and ambitious person.

But the data and experience gained from this program, if it does help the people of Africa to get a little bit out of hunger, can benefit citizens around the world, regardless of their economic status.