Yes, I ate bugs. Crickets to be precise. Before you judge me as really cool or really crazy – the bugs I am talking about were in the form of cricket flour so I won’t be appearing on the next episode of Fear Factor. In my constant pursuit of better foods, I came across Exo bars which are made from cricket flour (ground up crickets) and other natural ingredients. I knew I had to try them!
Exo makes the case that crickets are a highly sustainable source of protein that can help solve many of the problems associated with modern sources of protein and population growth – if only we could get over the idea that bugs are gross.
Exo bars come in 3 flavors – Cacao Nut, Peanut Butter and Jelly, and Cashew Ginger. All 3 contain 10g of protein in a 2.1 oz bar. That’s a decent amount of protein but they also contain a fairly high fat and sugar content. For example, the PB&J version has 14g of fat and 18g of sugar so I wouldn’t call this a snack or something to eat regularly but you won’t find artificial sweeteners or high fructose corn syrup so that’s a plus.
PB&J Exo protein bar
So how do they taste? Pretty good actually. They are moist with the consistency of a packaged brownie. PB&J was my favorite of the 3 flavors. If you didn’t know what was in these, there is nothing about the taste that would make you question the ingredients. But knowing what I was eating, I was constantly waiting for my gag reflex to kick in. Thankfully, it never did but it does get to be a bit strange when you are chewing and the crunching immediately makes you think of the crickets – even though the crunch is coming from the other ingredients like nuts and seeds.
At $3.00 each, they’re not cheap but I imagine the price will come down if they catch on. The whole idea of eating bugs (at least in this form) is fine by me.
What do you think? Are bugs as food the way of the future?
I ate bugs and I’m OK with that.
