The "Valala" Project

¼ of the World’s population knows bugs can be quite delicious.

The practice of eating insects in known as entomophagy. Insects currently feed about 2 billion people each day. Think Africa, Asia, and Latin America. People have consumed bugs for centuries and they have become a staple of many diets around the world.

Cricket Flour contains around 65 - 70 % protein.

 

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. They form nearly every tissue in your body. Cricket protein is considered a “complete protein” because it contains all nine essential amino acids. These amino acids -- leucine, isoleucine, valine, methionine, tryptophan, threonine, lysine, histidine, and phenylalanine -- are considered “essential” because you must get them through diet. You can’t synthesize them. 

 

In addition to protein, crickets are high in many other nutrients, including fat, calcium, potassium, zinc, magnesium, copper, folate, biotin, pantothenic acid, and iron.

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What’s more, crickets are a rich source of fibre, a nutrient that other sources of animal protein lack. Additionally, crickets provide fat, mostly in the form of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Studies have linked these to health benefits, including improvements in risk factors for heart disease.

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Research suggests that chitin, the insoluble fiber found in crickets, may be beneficial for gut health. Chitin may act as a prebiotic, promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut.

Farming insects such as crickets for food may be more sustainable and environmentally friendly than raising animals such as chicken, pigs, and cattle. 

 

Beef is a great source of bioavailable protein. Unfortunately, raising cows isn’t so great for the environment. When cows fart, they produce tons of methane. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, about 30x more potent than carbon dioxide. Not good for climate change. 

Conventional herding practices also destroy soil quality, create runoff waste, use excessive resources, and contribute to the problem of antibiotic resistance. Livestock account for around half of worldwide antibiotic usage.

 

That’s where crickets come in. Compared to livestock farming, cricket farming:

• Requires significantly less land 

• Produces less greenhouse gas emissions

• Doesn’t use antibiotics

• Uses way way way less feed per volume of protein produced

 

To be clear, crickets won’t solve climate change, pollution, or the global resource problem. But they can be part of the solution.  You can be part of the solution too by enjoying crickets, cricket flour, and cricket products.

The population of the world is estimated to reach 9 billion in 2050. That’s a number the world cannot currently sustain.

 

Crickets can add a cheap, efficient source of nutrition to diets that may be lacking in protein and iron, thus helping to address protein deficiencies in the developing world. Their high iron content can help diminish one of the world’s most common nutritional ailments, iron deficiency anemia.

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As the population has grown in Madagascar, the people in the south have been forced to move farther and farther from rivers.  This migration into the countryside has resulted in deforestation and over-use of lands that were never really very arable anyway.  So unfortunately, we suffer serious issues of food insecurity and regular famine across the south of the country.

 

The development of this alternative protein source may be part of the solution to the very important issues surrounding hunger and famine here in the south. If you would like to work with us on helping with food security and alleviation of hunger here in the south of Madagascar, please be in touch.