Monday, June 9, 2008

"Can I dip my crickets in honey?"


The title of today's blog is a question from one our students at the Chinese American International School. After talking about how people of different cultures eat insects, we had a "Bug Feast" at the end of our 12 week all bug after-school program. Cricket pizza, mealworm chocolate chip cookies and organic honey tasting were the major highlights. But, one student, Nicholas, just couldn't get enough of the crickets - even taking them off other students pizza (after asking nicely of course) and exclaiming "Eat just the heads! They're really crunchy!!" Now, I think we have him hooked for insect eating for the long run. Although, others might be harder to convince, even from experts.

Dr. David Glaser, recently interviewed by Discover magazine and featured on The Colbert Report, believes insects should be included in American's diet to lessen the cost of food production. The act of eating bugs or entomophagy, could be a small step (or hop) in the right direction. As stated in the Discover article, "854 million people around the world went hungry in 2003" this could be another way to look at how we feed our ever-growing population.

Here at SaveNature.org, as much as we love bugs, we know their eating potential. Our director has been noted as a fantastic gourmet insect chef, being featured in the book Man Eating Bugs by Peter Menzel. The father of insect eating is Gene R. DeFoliart, Ph.D, who has been compiling his bug eating findings on his website, a newsletter and is writing a book out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Another founder to the bug eating world is Ronald Taylor who brought us Butterflies in my Stomach Or: Insects in Human Nutrition (1975) and Entertaining with Insects co-written by Barbara J. Carter. The latter is still available for sale on at the link given. A more recent cookbook is the Eat-a-bug Cookbook by David George Gordon, which is a nice compilation of Dr. DeFoliart's, Taylor's, Menzel's and ours! These resources show there are lots of insects that are easy to cook for classrooms or parties to give your taste buds a new idea on eating (or just freak them out)!

Now it's time to dive into the appetizing edible world of YOU eating bugs. And if you're in the Bay Area and decide you REALLY love eating bugs, check out the B.A.B.E.S. here!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Hi! let me show you around

Hi Everyone!
Welcome to the SaveNatureDOTorg blog. We are a pretty interesting environmental non-profit, including 4 signature programs. Adopt An Acre® brings people around the world together for rainforest conservation. Adopt A Reef® allows ocean lovers to save previous coral reefs. To educate the public about these programs and biodiversity protection, our Insect Discovery Lab® serves schools, churches, temples, business, fairs and green theme events by bringing live exotic insects around the Bay Area. Finally our longest running program the Conservation Parking Meter® has over 125 partners and they have been spinning for global conservation, by collecting quarters, nickels and dimes since the 80's!

The programs have also been featured on Big Ideas for a Small Planet on the Sundance Channel, View From the Bay and Bay Area Backroads, in the past 2 years alone. We currently have a t-shirt with TONICgen.com that has raised enough money to save 15.5 acres of coral reef thus far. A feature with our director on Jack Hannah inspired a 5 year old to install a Conservation Parking Meter in her hometown of Nye Beach, Oregon and eventually the Oregon Zoo. A FIVE YEAR OLD!?! Were you thinking about conservation at 5!! I sure wasn’t, but children now are, and should be!

Our eclectic staff of just 10 features teachers, musicians, artists, photographers, breeders, conservationists and just plain insect LOVERS. It’s true. Every one of us really does LOVE bugs and if you keep reading I guarantee you’ll hear about some cool ones. Whether it’s one of ours in the lab, a staff member’s personal collection or their experiences with others.

Not only that, we’ll share great ideas on how to get your friends, family, school and community involved with world changing conservation work. We encourage all to post comments, concerns, stories and questions about how you have or plan to work with us to SAVE THIS PLANET! Sharing ideas and giving inspiration is the best way, we believe, to generate change. Don't forget to visit our website, and 2 myspaces, one for SaveNature.org and another for the Insect Discovery Lab (add us!!) for so much more information on everything we do.

Welcome all, to the SaveNatureDOTorg blog. Read, learn, react, interact, go out and make a difference! See you soon. You can start reading about bugs right now with this recent Newsweek article praising, of all things, the Dung Beetle. Enjoy!