Tlaltizapán (Mexico) (AFP) – Legend has it that the Aztecs loved grasshoppers because they warned them about fires. Today they are emerging as an alternative to combat child malnutrition in Mexico thanks to their nutritional properties.
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One hundred boys and girls from the impoverished community of Tlaltizapán (Morelos state, center) received a flour cookie prepared with these insects daily for five weeks, as part of an ongoing academic research project, supported by the government. and private hospitals.
The minors were tested before and after eating them to measure their nutrition levels. Although the results are not yet ready, his family reports that they immediately noticed positive effects.
“From the first day they started eating the cookies, they are more attentive, they eat well, they even help with constipation,” says Paula Rodríguez, 57, whose three grandchildren – including eight-year-old twins – received the ration. at the local headquarters of the National Institute of Pediatrics (INP), a government entity that supports the initiative.
Insects are an important source of protein, fatty acids, fiber and micronutrients such as copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, selenium and zinc, according to studies by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
A 2021 report from that organization indicated that in Mexico 12.5% of children under five years of age are stunted, 6.8% are overweight and 1.7% are underweight. Children in that age range represent 8% of the 126 million inhabitants.
The experiment in Tlaltizapán will be repeated in January in another neighboring community.
Millennial heritage
The Aztecs consumed grasshoppers, ants and other insects, as well as worms, but the custom faded after the Spanish conquest.
However, in Mexico chapulines are still sold on the streets or in restaurants like snacksand in bulk in some markets.
René Cerritos, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), who is involved in the project along with other academic entities, bakes the grasshopper cookies in his home in Mexico City with his colleague Erandi Reyna, from the INP.
Its objective is for the government to distribute them among boys and girls in marginalized areas, and for the general population to incorporate regular consumption of insects to “reduce diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and cancer”, sometimes associated with poor nutrition at an early age. says Reyna.
The Aztecs – who according to the myth were aware of the fires by the fast walking of the grasshoppers – “had an impressive diet (…), much better than what Mexico has today,” Cerritos adds after cooking a tray of cookies.
At the Tlaltizapán pediatric center, children enjoy cookies lightly sweetened with honey and coated with amaranth, without preservatives.
The twins burst in, laughing and shouting, looking for the food wrappers that contain games or riddles. “I like amaranth and honey and grasshoppers!” says Raymundo Morales, one of them, at the top of his voice.
From pasture to markets
On a cold morning, the collector Juan Tula Castillo, 43, makes his way through dense grasslands in Zacatepec (Puebla).
He walks up to 20 kilometers a day, shaking the vegetation with a mesh basket to which the grasshoppers cling while they sleep.
Wear a lamp tightly around your head to avoid falling into deep holes, being attacked by an animal or even assaulted. After six hours he collects 10 kilos of grasshoppers that he will sell for the equivalent of 28 dollars to a middleman, who will then market them in a market.
“I walk in the cold and do this, and I never get sick!” says Juan, smiling at dawn, with the majestic Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes in the background. For him, the grasshoppers that keep him healthy taste like “fried shrimp.”
The rise in insect consumption internationally motivated the French company Ÿnsect to ally with the Kosmos Corporation to install an insect farm in Mexico.
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