The Timon and Pumbaa Diet

Image credited to cartoonbucket.com

  

                                                Image credited to thegrowingproject.com  

Hey there everyone! I would hope most of you have seen the Lion King by now, and if not go treat yourself to it immediately. All watched and re-watched? Great, so you all remember how Timon and Pumbaa would chow down on surprisingly tasty looking bugs. This may seem like a poor diet and you would be right, but not for the reasons you're thinking. As it turns out eating bugs is just fine, even good for you. Timon and Pumbaa just need to get some fruits and veggies in there and they'll be great.

All jokes aside, it is very true that bugs are good for us. The concern I hear most often is that folks believe insects contain very little protein since they're so tiny. The good news is that these little guys are packed with nutrients, let's compare common house cricket protein contents to that of beef. the average protein content in common crickets is approximately 21 grams of protein per 100g of cricket. Our bovine buddies contain approximately 26g per 100g of beef. Right now you may be wondering why I presented this when the cricket loses, well this is because according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, American adults eat nearly twice as much protein as necessary on a daily basis. For most males this means around 102g of protein per day for men and nearly 70g for women. The healthy range, unless you are a professional athlete, is about 56g for men and 46g for women. To top it off, most insects contain other important substances for our bodies such as high iron content, amino acids, vitamins A and B12, plus many other combinations depending on the type of insect you decide to chow down on.

Now there are many other benefits to eating cricket over cow. It takes many times less water, food and space to raise the same amount of insects then it does for cattle. This means by switching to insects, or even just reducing beef consumption, we will have more room to build, live and grow more food for our fellow humans. Now I do apologize to any cow lovers reading this, I know it seems like I'm picking on them a little, but of all of our protein sources, beef is the one that is the most harmful to the environment. Don't get me wrong, I love a good burger more than almost any other food and insects still kind of gross me out, so this is something we need to do together as a team!

Well that's about all for me today, I really hope you all found this informative. If you have any questions, comments, concerns or suggestions for my next topic, please leave a comment or contact me through social media. Thanks again and peace out!