Say goodbye to any appetite you may have today. You can blame those crazy kids in South Korea for it.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the larva of the mealworm beatle (which you can see above) is the latest food to be approved by the South Korean government's food authority to be suitable for consumption once they're processed properly.
'We already had a public tasting of pizzas, pasta, porridge and a juice made or added with mealworms last month' a researcher at South Korea’s National Academy of Agricultural Science told the WSJ. 'And to my surprise, responses were pretty good. Many people liked them.' The worms are going to be ground up, the researcher also said, because people don't like to see them while eating. Hand them a Nobel for that observation.
Apparently the insect industry is big business in South Korea, with insect cultivation for pest control, pollinating and eating hoping to bring 300 billion won by the end of next year, and the mealworm has all the health benefits of other meats making it a viable replacement. 'The mealworm’s unit protein content is almost the same as that of beef and chickens and twice as much as pork. It is also a natural source of minerals and unsaturated fats, which are deemed good for health' the research also noted.
Whoever decided that pizza needed a I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here twist deserves a swift kick in the gonads for ruining pizza, the blessed gift from Italy that it is, for everyone.
But it doesn't stop there, as Korea also plans on ruining biscuits and protein bars for you after one college student started his own company to make 'grasshopper cookies'. Thanks but no thanks.
Photo credit: Peter Halasz/Wikipedia
