I would love to nibble on Jeanette Aw’s toes. Yum!
“When you chew the grasshopper, it disintegrates and it becomes like [flaky bits],” she said.
I’m not excited to try insects for food, but I’d be open to trying those that are Biblically kosher. Grasshoppers are Kosher.
I have a hunch that the main pathway for insects into our diets will be in ground or powdered form, added to conventional foods as a supplement.
There are insects and insect parts in any plant food that comes out of the fields or that has been transported by truck or rail or that has been in storage.
The only way to avoid this would be to pick your tomatoes fresh off the vine in your home hydroponic system. I don’t know if hydroponics will get much traction on Earth, but they would be essential for long distance space travel or extraterrestial bases on non-terraformed worlds.
That said, unless I am recruited for the first Martian base, I think I’ll take a pass on bugs. Except for the trace contamination in grocery store products.
Humans are not geared for digesting large amounts of chitin.
Not even going to replace beef and animal meats.