Cricket flour
Flavor and uses
You will believe that the cricket flour does not have a good taste, instead you are wrong! It tastes similar to hazelnut, so it blends well with all baked goods, both sweet and savory. Ideal for bread, crackers, cookies and cakes!
Our advice is to mix 90% traditional flour with 10% cricket flour.
You can also add smoothies and mixes to increase the protein value, or combine it with creams or sauces to intensify the aroma.
Nutritional values
Cricket flour is made from 100% dried and ground crickets in a high protein powder. Crickets have an extraordinary protein value of 69%, unlike vegetable proteins, they are high quality complete proteins, containing all the essential amino acids.
Crickets are a rich source of fiber and minerals such as calcium and iron (more than double iron compared to spinach), vitamin B12 (a vitamin lacking in the vegetarian and vegan diet) and omega 3 fatty acids.
They are totally ecological: just think that you need 1.7 kg of feed to produce 1kg of crickets, while to get 1kg of beef you need 10kg!
You always ate insects without knowing it!
Do you know the RED food coloring?
Cochineal is a dye derived from the homonymous insect belonging to the coccoid family, in particular from females of the species Dactylopius, Dactylopius coccus and of the species Kermes vermilio. The carminic acid, which is the colored molecule, can also be extracted from bacteria modified for this purpose .. It had the writing E120 .. and it was generally found alcoholic beverages such as alkermes, bitters and famous aperitifs …
Given the high cost, lately it is often replaced by dyes or mixtures of synthetic dyes such as E122, E124, E150, E129 in commercial food products (compulsorily listed on the label as food additives with the related European symbol).
If, even in the hidden form, the idea still does not please you, know that without our knowledge we already eat about 500 grams of insects a year “hidden” in the agro-fed preparations, in jams, in fruit juices, without forgetting the fly larvae found in summer cherries …
fnt: Thomas Louapre
This system will help fight hunger in the world: insects are rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals. Furthermore, consuming Crickets will help mitigate pollution. As Van Huis and colleagues point out, livestock occupies 60% of the world’s agricultural land and generates 20% of all the planet’s greenhouse gases. Otherwise, the breeding of insects would produce less greenhouse gases: 10 times less methane, 300 times less nitrous oxide.
This project was the focus of a meeting of the British Royal Entomological Society, while FAO is seriously thinking of a “revolution of this kind” on a global scale.
Fnt: Damian Carrington, “Insects could be the key to meeting food needs of growing global population”, The Observer, 31/08/2010
But what are the edible insects? Don’t panic, there are “only” 2000 species now considered excellent to eat on the millions of species reviewed and producers are starting to “attack” the market only on those generally considered more appealing. They are usually available in the form of flours or mixed in biscuits.
To date, the insects arouse above all a bit of disgust and evoke (wrongly!) Lack of hygiene in most Westerners, but the food crisis comes to give a beautiful wake up to traditional habits.
Since 2013, the FAO has argued that breeding and consuming large-scale insects will be able to put an end to a whole series of environmental problems, with the continuous increase of the population (more than 9 billion people by 2050), it would be good to start wondering how to feed them all.
If entomophagy currently seems to be limited to the more adventurous globetrotters, it is known that almost 3 billion individuals on planet earth eat insects and, even if Europeans occasionally forget it, their ancestors did not hesitate to dip their hands in a full sack of crickets, locusts and beetles: Greeks and Romans enjoyed them as regularly as our ancestors, at least until the Middle Ages.
The idea of becoming entomafagi is slowly becoming concrete and many chefs have already started testing new recipes based on crickets or silkworms. More than an unusual fashion, it is a trend that could grow and lend a hand to the world.
Insects eaters around the world
