Food scientists in Australia have found a new way to deliver protein to hungry people: maggot sausage.
Researchers at the University of Queensland said they are looking into using maggots and other “alternative proteins” in a variety of “specialty foods,” including sausage.
“An overpopulated world is going to struggle to find enough protein unless people are willing to open their minds, and stomachs, to a much broader notion of food,” Dr. Louwrens Hoffman, a professor of meat science at the University of Queensland, said.
“Would you eat a commercial sausage made from maggots? What about other insect larvae and even whole insects like locusts? The biggest potential for sustainable protein production lies with insects and new plant sources,” Hoffman said.
Sausages would be an ideal delivery method for maggots, Hoffman said, because Western consumers would not eat insects unless they were “processed and disguised.”
Researchers found that broiler chickens could also be fed a 15% “larvae meal” without compromising its taste.
“It’s all pretty logical if you think about it,” Hoffman said, explaining that wild chickens already eat insects and larvae.
