foodandhealthteacher

In recent months, food trend experts have predicted that food shortages around the world will force us to eat insects and grubs.

A few months ago I used this starter in a food lesson

Can eating insects save the world?

https://foodandhealthteacher.com/2015/11/28/eating-insects-deal-or-no-deal/

Following this, many of my pupils where curious about the edible insect market so I did a little research and found this UK based company that sells insects and got a starter pack of dried insects to experiment.

http://www.eatgrub.co.uk/product/grub-edible-insects-starter-pack/

I was very surprised when a number of my GCSE pupils after tasting a few insects decided to ground down the insects using a pestle and mortar  to include them in their GCSE product development work. The aim of using the insects was to increase the protein content of products to be sold in bakeries or coffee shops and to link their work to current food trends.The pupils target market were people who required high energy levels for sports and then high protein levels for muscle recovery and repair of damaged body cells.

The protein content of these insects is impressive as you can read on the back of the packaging.

Here are some pictures of the final products:

A selection of mini tartlets which contain mealworms.

High protein buffalo worm and almond tart.

Both dishes were delicious and many pupils were willing to try them.

In the upcoming  weeks at school, I will be cooking with insects with some of my year 9 food groups using recipes from this website http://www.eatgrub.co.uk/recipes/

I’m thinking Buffalo Worm Macaroni Cheese and  Mealworm Flapjacks, perfect protein packed dishes for sporting adolescents. I will let you know how that goes!!!