Do Edible Ants Hold The Answer?

Tourists buy hormigas culonas
near Plaza Bolivar today.

Planet Earth is facing a looming food crisis, not only because the number of humans is increasing, but even more because more and more of those humans want to eat meat, which requires lots of land and resources.

Fortunately, the Food and Agriculture has a solution: Eat Insects!

Even better, Colombians are already eating ants, called hormigas culonas, which are in season right now.



Mouth watering? Hormigas culonas come roasted and salted.



Insect eating isn't as crazy at it sounds. Cultures all over the world eat all sorts of insects, with no apparent harm. The hormigas culonas (lliterally, big butt ants), a traditional food of indigenous people near the Venezuelan border, come streaming out of their nests this time of year and are caught in nets strung in trees. There's apparently little harm done to the ant colonies. The insects streaming out are females vying to establish new colonies. As long as just a few succeed, the species reproduces itself.

Edible ants for sale.

Of course, today ants are only a novelty food in Colombia. But there are good reasons why ants, grasshoppers and even insect pupae could be an important part of the human diet. They grow quickly, occupy little space and provide lots of protein, nutrients and other stuff.

More importantly, insects are much more productive than vertebrates in turning feed into meat. For each ten kilograms of feed a cow eats it produces only one kilogram of cow. Because an insect is cold blooded, it requires much less energy to maintain itself. As a result, an insect produces about eight times more 'meat' per amount of feed than a cow does. (Poultry are more efficient than cows and pigs, but less than insects.) Best of all, you can eat a whole insect, including usually its exoskeleton - but just try biting thru a cow's backbone.

The big-butt ants are supposed to be aphrodisiac.

Insect farming also has the benefit of reducing concerns about animal suffering, since insects are presumably less intelligent and sensitive than than mammals. And insects could easily be farmed at home, in small areas, reducing deforestation impacts.

Does the idea of eating insects seem gross? That's strange, since crustacean delicacies like shrimp, crab and

lobster are taxonomically speaking just marine insects.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours