Do you dare to eat “dried cockroaches”? In fact, this is a dish that Chinese people love to order online
Billions of cockroaches are being raised in China to tackle food waste
China’s expansion of cities is generating more food waste than can be stored in landfills. Accordingly, many regions in this country have chosen cockroaches as a “tool” in the problem of solving food waste, and providing nutritious food for pets as well as people, some say, these types of insects. Food made from cockroaches, especially dried cockroaches, can cure stomach ailments and take care of beauty.
On the outskirts of Jinan, the capital of Shandong province, there is a farm where about a billion cockroaches are being fed with 50 tons of kitchen waste a day – equivalent to the weight of seven adult elephants. .
These types of kitchen waste are transported to the farm before dawn, run by Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology Co., and these special foods are sent through pipes to cockroaches in their storage cells. they.
Workers sort kitchen waste to feed cockroaches at a waste processing facility of Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology on the outskirts of Jinan, Shandong province, China.
Shandong Qiaobin plans to set up three more such plants next year, aiming to process a third of kitchen waste produced by Jinan, home to about seven million people.
The ban on using leftovers as pig feed in China due to the previous outbreak of African swine fever is also considered a factor promoting the development of the cockroach farming industry.
“Cockroach farming is one of the ways to apply biotechnology to convert and treat kitchen waste,” said Liu Yusheng, president of the Shandong Insect Industry Association.
Cockroaches are also a good source of protein for pigs and other livestock. “It’s like turning garbage into a resource,” said Shandong President Qiaobin Li Hongyi.
Become a “clean” food source for people
In Sichuan, a company called Gooddoctor is raising six billion cockroaches.
Wen Jianguo, manager of the Gooddoctor cockroach facility, said: “Cockroach essence is very good for curing mouth and peptic ulcers, skin wounds and even stomach cancer.”
Researchers are also looking into the use of cockroach extracts to make beauty masks, weight loss pills, and even hair loss treatments.
At Gooddoctor, when cockroaches reach the maximum threshold of maturity – about six months, they are steamed, washed and dried, before being sent to a giant nutrient extraction tank.
In case you don’t know, China is a country where people tend to eat almost anything that can be eaten. In recent times, Chinese farmers have delved into raising cockroaches in the belief that it is rich in protein. So while some countries like Nigeria are busy killing cockroaches around them and wasting their meat, China is busy exploiting the insects’ rich nutrients.
In a remote village in Sichuan, 47-year-old Li Bingcai has a similar idea. “It has great economic value and my goal is to lead other villagers to prosperity if they follow my lead,” Li said.
His village currently has two farms, and Li’s goal is to create another 20 in the near future.
Li, formerly a mobile phone supplier, has invested one million yuan in cockroaches, whose cockroaches will be sold to pig and seafood farms as food and also as a source of food. supply to drug companies to make raw materials for medicine.
In addition, Li raises them for another reason: food for humans.
In 2013, the United Nations published a report promoting insects as a low-fat, high-protein food for pets and humans alike. Insects are currently an important source of protein around the world, and may become even more important as the world’s population approaches 8 billion. By 2050, the United Nations estimates, farmers will have to nearly double their food production to feed everyone. Accordingly, the demand for insects will also increase. With their low resource requirements and relatively easy rearing, insects will most likely help humans solve the problem of food shortages. It is estimated that 2 billion people eat insects. More than 1,900 species of insects are consumed around the world – the most common consumers are beetles and caterpillars, ants, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets, cockroaches are also on the list of edible insects. .
He also owns a small restaurant where they are prepared with the famous gourmet Sichuan spicy sauce. “People don’t believe how delicious it is until they try some,” Li told AFP.
Known colloquially as the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana is one of the largest and is consumed to cure a variety of ailments: stomach ulcers, respiratory problems, and even simply as a tonic.
“The biggest effect of cockroaches is that they have great immunity, that’s why humans will absorb its benefits after eating them,” Li said, noting that in China, cockroaches They are nicknamed “Little Strong” because they can live for days even after losing their head or half of their body.
The six-legged creatures can be a danger to most people, but Li and other breeders in China are turning them into a niche business.
China has about 100 cockroach farms, and that number is growing. That price hike has been going on since 2010. Last year, Li sold a ton of dried cockroaches to a pharmaceutical factory for nearly 90,000 yuan ($13,500).
Dried cockroaches are known as a health and nutritious food in China.
Recently, an online store in China specializing in providing food and snacks has offered to sell a special dish that is suitable as a snack when drinking – “dried cockroaches”. According to the information provided by the store, the dish “dried cockroaches” is produced according to the “latest recipe”, while ensuring three conditions: pure natural product, no additives, artificial flavors, stable source of raw materials. The store above also advertises: “The dish is rich in nutrition and protein, delicious, crispy. Very suitable for drinking wine”, in addition, the quantity imported is also limited.
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