Monday, May 5, 2014

Should Bug Parts in Your Food Bug You?

Like it or not, bug parts are a part of your diet. Find out which insects you're munching and why. Plus, can insects actually be tasty?

You probably don't dine regularly on garlicky grasshoppers or scorpion scallopini. Still, you might be eating a pound of bug parts each year – in peanut butter sandwiches, chocolate candy bars or the sauce on your pizza.

Peanut butter, for example, can contain up to 30 insect parts per 3.5 ounces (100 grams). The same amount of chocolate can hold as many as 60 insect parts, and a ladle of tomato sauce can hide up to 30 fly eggs.

You're probably saying, "Eew!"

But bug parts in food are legal, according to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations.

And relax, some bug experts claim eating insects is no big deal.

"If you find a bug part in your cauliflower, get over it," says biologist and bug chef David George Gordon, author of The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook ^[1] (Ten Speed Press). "You're getting value-added protein."

In fact, pound for pound, bugs have almost as much protein as lean beef, says Tom Turpin, Ph.D., an entomology (insect science) professor at Purdue University in Indiana.

Bugs in your meal aren't entirely risk-free. For example, they could cause allergic reactions in some people, says New York allergist Morton M. Teich, M.D., clinical instructor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.