Beakerhead festival attendees to dine on crickets

Many people would gag at the thought of snacking on crickets.

But on Wednesday, the brave crew on the Calgary Eyeopener gave them a try and unanimously decided the insectsactuallytaste like sunflower seeds.

"I'd do another one," said traffic reporterAngela Knight, who was the first to pop acrunchy morsel in her mouth.

But she preferred the Crickerscrackers made from crickets which have been milled into a powder. The cricket powder is paleo-friendly, gluten-free and a surefire way to not getanylegs or antennaestuck between your teeth.

Robert Nathan Allenwas dishing out the snacks. He's thethe Austin-based sales director for Aspire Food Group, which is raising crickets specifically for human consumption in the U.S., Mexico and Ghana.

The company was started by a team of MBA students from McGill University who won the 2013 Hult Prize for social entrepreneurship.

• Flour made with insects wins $1M for McGill team

Allen is in townfor several Beakerhead events and toopen people's minds aboutthe benefits of an insect-based diet.

"They're extremely healthy and not a lot of people realize that," said Allen.

Not only are they packed with protein, iron, calcium and magnesium you can start a cricket farm almost anywhere in the world.

Allen says that's because crickets require far less feed and land than livestock and staple crops like wheat and rice.

"This isn't a silver bullet, but it's one piece of the puzzle for how we feed the world without ruining it," he said.

The big hurdle? Getting people to forget they're actually eating bugs.

"Really once you can get someone to take a first bite whether it's a whole cricket or a cricket cracker or a chocolate chip cookie with cricket powder that gets past that mental hurdle and at that point you can really look at this as just another food ingredient for us to make healthier foods."

Allen will be speaking at the sold-out Bugs and Beer event on Sept. 16 and the How Doing Good in the World is Great Business event on Sept. 17.

He'll also be teaching a class at the Cookbook Co. on Sept. 19 about cooking with cricket powder.