Should we be eating insects? By Brittany

This week, Mrs Parker's literacy group has been learning about persuasive writing, and strangely, she has made us write about eating insects!

I bet your thinking, 'Yuck!' or something like that, but it is an interesting topic!

First we had to watch videos about eating insects and see if perhaps we could find our own side in this small argument, and I unlike some others in my group has chosen to maybe give eating insects a chance.

If you, like me before I learnt more about the topic was grossed out, perhaps I could change your mind..

Enjoy!

Should we be eating insects?

For some of us, bugs are pests, creatures that ruin our crops and annoy us at times, not many of us might think it but people all over the world eat bugs! Disgusting? Thought so. But not for me, I for one think that we probably should eat bugs! Yes, I know it's disgusting and you might be saying yuck on the other side of the screen, but I truly think so, they are nutritious, inexpensive to farm and also take a ton less water than cows, sheep, chickens and pigs, and when I say that I mean it literally.You may be wondering, what kind of mad cuckoo person am I? But I do have reasons for my perspective in this side of the argument and I do swear, I'm being completely reasonable here.

Healthy, not so disgusting!

My first and the most stupid and craziest of all my reasons are because they are nutritious, having even more vitamins, minerals and even irons than beef! You may be thinking I'm probably lying, if I wasn't everyone in the world would be eating bugs right now! But sadly, us humans believe that bugs are disgusting because to us, they are pests, but this coming from a girl whose brother ate a ladybug, I think you can trust me, and I do assure you I am not joking.Think this was weird? Try me, I have another few weird reasons slipped up my sleeve.

Easy to farm and gain money off farming insects.

This reason is less weird and more interesting, I don't think you know this but this fact I found very interesting myself, bug farming is inexpensive as bugs are naturally attracted to food, people who are less fortunate than us are able to raise them without money and gain quite the sum of money from the bug farming business as they take less water to raise and mostly feed off scraps and though  it takes a few yards of land to raise cattle but cricket farms take the smallest of the amount of land that takes to hold and farm cow and are are also able to be raised in most conditions.

Edible and less costly to farm.

The last reason is that they are almost 80% edible compared to cows, pigs and chickens which take are about 40% to 50% edible and to make it more amazing we could help support the water crisis in the next few years by eating bugs! Crickets take only 1 litre of water to raise, compared to a kilogram of beef, which takes the large amount of 22000 litres of water, a kilogram of pork, 3500 litres and a kilogram of chicken which takes 2300 litres! Imagine the amount of water we're using just to raise farm animals! And if that's not enough, surprisingly, there are many products out there such as Cricket flour and scorpion, ant and cricket lollipops! Your most likely thinking, yuck, but hear me out. Bugs, like lobsters and crabs used to be considered as pests but now are enjoyed as a delicacy all around the world, perhaps it could be the same for insects? People from other countries in the world eat Tarantulas, Scorpions, Silkworms, Crickets, Beetle Larvae and many other insects that some of us consider gross, considering them as a delicacy, like us in other countries who seem to consider lobsters and snails as delicacies and if there even is a practice, called entomophagy, the practice of eating insects, I don't think it can be that bad, can it?

What have we learnt?

Truly, I believe that we should integrate insects into our diet as they are healthy, easy to raise and more edible and easier to farm and take less water to raise than cows, pigs and chickens. They are filled with vitamins to make our immune system stronger and are easy to find all over our world.Maybe next time your somewhere in china or perhaps try one of their fried insects, and trust me, my mom has eaten insects before, she claims they are actually quite scrumptious! So I believe, with all my heart that we should be eating insects.