In truth, experts say that many nations have partaken in bug delights throughout history. “In Laos and Thailand, weaver-ant pupae are a highly prized and nutritious delicacy. They are prepared with shallots, lettuce, chilies, lime and spices and served with sticky rice. Further back in history, the ancient Romans considered beetle larvae to be gourmet fare, and the Old Testament mentions eating crickets and grasshoppers. In the 20th century, the Japanese emperor Hirohito's favorite meal was a mixture of cooked rice, canned wasps (including larvae, pupae and adults), soy sauce and sugar.”

Here's something that might remove the sting of that description. Experts also say that there are many benefits of eating bugs. For starters, they’re safer than animals. Shockingly, less than 0.5% of all known insect species are harmful to people, farm animals or crop plants. Further, bugs just may be the answer to the population rise on the horizon. That’s because they’re easier to raise than animals. And they’re rich in protein.

“Raising insects for food would avoid many of the problems associated with livestock. For instance, swine and humans are similar enough that they can share many diseases. Such co-infection can yield new disease strains that are lethal to humans, as happened during a swine fever outbreak in the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Because insects are so different from us, such risks are accordingly lower,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Insects are much easier to raise than livestock. They require less feed and produce less waste – only 20 percent of a cricket is inedible, compared with up to 65 percent unusable parts in lamb and 45 percent for beef.

Who knows what the future will hold? Perhaps we will all be dining on insect delights. Until then, let’s just try not to think about the bugs that are legally hanging out in our foods.