Acheta domesticus. The common cricket. It's what's for dinner.
According to an article in Newsweek, crickets are a super food for you and the environment. Crickets contain every essential amino acid, more calcium than beef or pork and nine times more iron than chicken, according to the magazine. Crickets feed on waste products like brewer's yeast (what's left from making that beer that'll help wash down your dinner of fried crickets).
They also require less space than typical livestock.
Harmon Johar, chief innovation officer of Aspire, said crickets prefer to be crowded together in the dark. "You can stack boxes of these things on top of each other-these crickets don't mind," Johar told Newsweek.
Johar started raising crickets in his dorm room in college. (And you thought your college roommate was a nightmare).
If the idea of crunching a bug between your teeth makes your belly churn, one of Aspire's brands, Aketta, sells cricket flour that is made of two-thirds protein and can be used to make baked goods.
The article cited online reviewers as saying the snacks "taste weird" and that they were "weirdly good. You would never know that this is actually made of crickets."
Children have no fear of eating bugs, said Johar.
"We find that kids have no fear whatsoever [of eating insects].... Usually parents have to tear them away."