You’ll have to forsake your disgust for bugs and embrace cockroach milk. Cockroach milk? Yes! you read right. Milk from cockroach is apparently, a great deal of protein. It is believed that its energy is thrice the equivalent of buffalo milk and, about four times the equivalent of cow’s milk.
Although cockroach milk is yet to find a space at grocery stores, the product in the nearest future, will possibly, become the major milk products in the market.
As it happened, cockroach milk was invented after some scientists discovered that the Pacific Beetle Cockroaches do feed their babies a formula which is highly rich in fat, sugar and protein. This formula, the scientists thought, could be processed into the perfect protein drink for humans.
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The scientists started examining the Pacific Beetle cockroaches also known as Diploptera punctata; the only viviparous species of cockroach. They don’t lay eggs and the babies develop in their mother’s body. Thus, the Pacific Beetle cockroaches like other viviparous creatures, nourish its growing embryos with a protein-rich liquid secreted by its brood sac; roach version of the uterus. It is known that protein crystals do develop within the embryo’s midgut the moment it ingests the secreted liquid.
It was some of these protein crystals that the scientists extracted for their study. Their aim amongst other things was to examine its nutrient values. After their scrutiny, the scientist proclaimed that the crystals are a perfect food, richer than buffalo and cow’s milk.
One of the scientists, Leonard Chavas told CNN that the protein crystals are milk for the cockroach infant.
“It is important for its growth and development,” Chavas said and pointed out that the interesting thing is what the crystals are made of. “It is what one would need – protein, essential amino acids, lipids, and sugars,” he disclosed.
The last time Wiredbugs checked, Chavas and his colleague were working on how to milk cockroaches and start a mass production of cockroach milk. “We are trying to understand how to control this phenomenon in a much easier way, to bring it to mass production,” he said.
Cockroach Milk Isn’t The Only Nasty “Nutritious” Food
If you find the whole idea of cockroach milk disgusting, you should know that there are other nasty things humans consume as food which has been okayed as nutritious. One of them is the human placenta.
Apart from the claim that human placentas have protein and fats, it is believed that eating human placenta prevents postpartum depression and other complications that come with pregnancy.
One can’t refer to any scientific study which has proven any benefits of consuming placentas. Nonetheless, it’s widely held that human mothers experienced improved lactation, mood and increased energy after eating their own placenta.
The practice of eating the placenta after childbirth, known as Placentophagy is common in history, among mammals and different cultures. While animals feed on the afterbirth straight-up raw, humans have come up with other ways of consumption. Some dry and put it in pills as others make delicacies out of it.
How About Some Blood Sausage or Bamboo Worms With A Glass of Cockroach Milk?
Want to throw up huh? Don’t yet. Blood sausage; sausages made out of the blood of pigs, goats, cattle, ducks etc, are been prepared in various manners and consumed in countries across the globe.
Eaters of blood sausage will say you’re missing a great deal if you’ve never eaten it. They would stress it’s a tasty sausage with everything you need in a food; energy, carbohydrates, sugars, fat, protein, and iron.
The invention of blood sausage wasn’t inspired by the thirst to consume blood. From our gatherings, the beginning of sausages filled with blood can be traced to the discovery that blood is good in binding food. It is said that blood does help to get the sausage stay together, thick enough to solidify without falling apart when cooked and cooled.
Which will you favour? Blood sausage or crispy, deep-fried spicy bamboo worms with a glass of cockroach milk?
Anyway, the consumption of bamboo worms and other kinds of insects has long gained popularity in many places around the world, especially in Asia.
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Bamboo worm is now a popular Thai delicacy. A high demand for it as food has, in fact, brought about the commercial farming of the worms which were originally gathered from bamboo trees in forests. They are harvested when they are just mature caterpillars, deep-fried, and flavoured with herbs and spices for consumption.
Like other edibles this piece covered, bamboo worms are believed to be nutritious as they are endowed with protein and fat.
