Creepy crawling critters cooked kind of deliciously: this is the mission statement behind Pat Crowley, a Salt Lake City businessman and his partner Dan O'Neill plan for getting more Americans to eat insects. A journey that began in 2012, the business partners have been making a high-protein bar with crickets as their special ingredient.
Crowley told FOX News that eating insects is "environmentally friendly" and "nutritious.," with one bar carrying 60 percent protein, 21 grams per 35 gram serving.
However, trying to sell the idea to Americans has become much more of a harder challenge than Crowley thought. That's why his latest creation is an innovative cricket flour.
"We make this flour to address the psychological reasons so people don't have to actually see the insect when they bite into a bar," said Crowley.
The plan is to ease Americans into eating insects, the same way California rolls opened Americans up to sushi.
According to FOX News, Crowley's Chapul bars (chapul is the Aztec word for cricket) taste similar, maybe even better than regular protein bars. The Aztec bars come in three flavors including dark chocolate, coffee, and cayenne chilli. the Thai bar is a mix of coconut, ginger lime with almond butter and cashews.
"And then we have the all American peanut butter and chocolate," said Crowley. "Named the Chaco bar which is a Native American culture that lived in the Four Corners region."
Crowley is not the only man pushing for Americans to try insects for dinner.
According to a 2013 report by The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations titled "Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security," a farming intensive calls for insects "to feed a growing population."
"It is widely accepted that by 2050 the world will host nine million people. To accommodate this number current food production will need to almost double. Insects offer a significant opportunity," the report stated.
Currently, about two billion people in the world consistently consume some to the world nearly two thousand edible insects, which include crickets, locusts, beetles, scorpions and tarantulas. Despite growing number in the insect eating trend, some Americans and Europeans still think of it as a gruesome idea.
"If we were to forget that bugs were icky then we'd probably think that bugs were delicious," Mary Ann Hamilton, an entomologist at the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster, Colorado, said. "It was easy for us to forget that lobster and shrimp, which are really the bugs of the ocean, were icky. Now they're delicacies."
Hamilton added: "I want to tell you a secret, we eat bugs every day. We eat bugs because we have bugs that are milled into our flour that the Food and Drug Administration can't control. Cinnamon, chocolate, those are full of bugs. Any kind of cereal or cereal grain, there is definitely a bug or two in there. Or at least a piece of one."
Crowley is a man of hope and still believes that the idea of eating insects is slowly catching up to people. His bars are currently sold in 100 health stores in the United States.
"A year and a half ago when we launched it was blowing people's minds, like 'What? You guys are crazy!' But now it is kind of gaining some momentum and people are becoming more receptive to it," Crowley said.
