Why You Have Eaten Insects Without Knowing It
If you answered none you’re kidding yourself because it is perfectly legal for food manufacturers to include insects (and worse) in your food. To be honest it would be difficult to make bulk food ingredients 100% pure, some impurities are bound to be in there and insects will be one of those impurities. Wheat flour has an average of 150 or more insect fragments per 100 grams and ground thyme has an average of 925 or more insect fragments per 10 grams. So although you may not be eating a huge amount each day, over a year all those fragments add up. According to entomologist Marcel Dicke from Wageningen University the average person in the west eats up to 500g of insects annually through processed vegetable-based products and foods dyed with insect derivatives. Putting that into context, 500g is half a standard bag of sugar! But thinking positively those insect fragments are not going to do you any harm, I know because I've been eating several whole insects and survived the expe