THE United Nations, which seldom seems to have much positive to report, says that the world population will be hovering around 9-billion within 25 years and that food security will be a definite problem.
A UN report says that global food production will have to double by then and that the days of cheap protein, like meat, are coming to an end.
But they have a solution – we must eat more insects and other creepy crawlies.
The report says that already well over a quarter of the world’s population eats insects regularly, and the habit is going to have to spread.
But why insects? Well, they are nutritious, they are ubiquitous in nature, there are lots of them (more than half the organisms on earth today are insects), and finally, they are apparently good for you.*
Locally, I have to think of mopani worms.
I can remember years ago catering for an Archaeological Society workshop in Johannesburg on African pre-history.
We wanted to have African food and a colleague who lived in Soweto brought us a large batch of mopani worms and told us how to cook them.
They went down very well at the workshop lunch, as did the various types of maize meal my colleague brought us (it’s not just porridge or stywepap, you know), but we had lots of other interesting things as well.
Even longer ago I remember at that boys’ home I’ve mentioned before – we used to have a camp at Umtentweni during the July holidays and one evening some of us were still sitting in the mess area when there was an infestation of flying ants.
Cookie (our enormous and ever-cheerful cook), netted dozens of them, pulled off their wings and fried them in butter for us.
At the time we were delighted at the change of diet, and it looks like we may just be heading back to such feasts.
On the subject of diets, if you miss your white storks this coming summer, it may well be because they are spending longer in Europe these days.
It seems that the storks have discovered Europe’s rubbish dumps and instead of migrating for the southern summer they are in fact spending more time foraging on rubbish.
Ornithologists have noted that the storks seem quite comfortable on a diet of old chips, pizza and hamburgers, rather than their usual fare of beetles, grasshoppers and frogs, and that in fact this new behavior is saving the birds energy and enabling them to start their breeding season earlier than usual.
Perhaps we should be making our rubbish dumps more stork friendly in order to keep them down here longer.*
Staying with birds, our new bird bath is attracting quite a lot of avian interest and I’m pleased to note that the red enamel dish that was so productive in the old hide is beginning to attract attention too.
We’re having birds come down to drink at both on a regular basis and we’ve had a situation where the birdbath has been simply full of mossies splashing around.
All good news. Cheers!
*The Week: The Best of the British and Foreign Media.
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