Dr Jarrod Goldin on Sustainable Cricket Protein for Gut Health

This episode is brought to you by Nourish Me Organics, provider of innovative gut health products. Check out our prebiotic cricket powder for a sustainable source of protein that is great for your gut health. Visit www.nourishmeorganics.com and use the code guthealthgurus at checkout for 10% off your purchase.

Hey, guys, Cribbing govender from the Gut Health Gurus podcast. I've got a background in food science. My colleague next to me, James Shadrach, is all things psychology. And we've got a very interesting guest for you today. Coming all the way from Canada, Jared golden from Entomo Farms. Jared, welcome to the podcast.

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invitation, Jared.

What we typically like to do at the start of our podcast is just to set the scene for the audience listening. So who is Jared Golden?

He's a proud dad, husband, son, and entrepreneur. And generally the roof over my head is paid for by being a chiropractor and teaching at the Chiropractor College, working on a really exciting business with my brothers called Ntomo Farms.

Great. And in terms of your, I guess, your credentials, your background, education, can you speak to that a little bit?

Sure. I did a Bachelor of Science undergrad, and then I did my Doctor of Chiropractic degree, which was four years postgrad, so seven years in post high school education. And, you know, working for 22 years in the healthcare field and taking on entrepreneurial ventures along the way, and just being an avid reader of business as it pertains especially to our planet, climate change, and, you know, what kind of difference we can make along the way.

And a couple of episodes ago, we had Dr. Zach Bush on the podcast and he blew our minds in terms of how little time we actually have in terms of the environmental devastation of our planet and the loss of species that's happening right now. And very much along the lines of excess meat consumption, deforestation, carbon getting into the atmosphere because of decimating our soils. So this is such a timely conversation that we're having with you, Jared, because I think the products that you've developed specifically around using, I guess, insect proteins could go a long way in addressing some of these concerns that we have in terms of environmental devastation. So what got you interested in these insect proteins? What's your, I guess the hero's journey for you? How did you discover this very fascinating area? I mean, it's not new. I mean, humans have been consuming insects for a long time. But how did you get interested in.

That space, yeah, basically in 2013, the United nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization put out a white paper, kind of like a book called Edible Insects Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security. And my brothers had been raising insects for the reptile trade and the bait trade, and they were having a lot of fun together. Thought one day it would be great to join them in business. We were really close, but they always did their thing. And I followed my career as a chiropractor. But when that white paper came out and given their background around the same time, there was a person on a show called Shark Tank where entrepreneurs come and pitch people an idea and then these investors either choose to or or not to invest. And a smart guy named Mark Cuban, who you may have heard of, invested in this company that was making energy bars out of crickets. And, you know, it was a whole new business. And I called my brothers up right away and I said, you know, the UN and the FAO is saying that this is inevitable. We have you guys who know how to raise these insects and we have a consumer brand on the market and a guy like Mark Cuban investing in it. Maybe this is the opportunity we've been looking for to start a business together, a side business, and let's see if we can raise some money and get started on a new venture. And that kind of was the aha moment. Those three things came together and five years later, we're moving ahead.

Got a cute little dog in the background as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have you got him onto the cricket protein yet?

Yes. We work with a couple companies that make dog treats and Purina actually just launched an amazing dog food under a brand called Root Lab. And other people are looking to do more on the food side, on the food side for pets, dogs, cats, etc.

That's really interesting because you'll see food trends, something like keto, which is extremely popular, and then somehow it translates into keto pet foods because I guess people feel good about having a keto diet and then they want to introduce keto principles to their pets as well. It's almost a reflection, isn't it?

For sure, yeah. Yeah. I think there's a great opportunity in pet food and it's a no brainer. It's good for them. Most pets, like dogs and cats, are natural foragers anyway, and there's a reason for that.

So in terms of you've set the timeline. So the timeline was around five years ago when you first, I guess, conceptualized this idea. And now you've clearly Taken it to market. And you probably are, I would say, one of the major guys in the world in this field. What is the, I guess the, if we take a step back, what is the, I guess the history of consumption from your point of view, that humans eating insects?

You know, there's a great book by a woman named Julie Lesnick from Wayne State University that basically, you know, answered that question in a big book around the ancestry or anthropology of entomophagy or eating insects around the world. And certainly in every, almost every warm climate from the Americas, South America, Africa and the Far east, there's, you know, cultural cultures eating insects. You know, it's billions of people, a big percentage of the world population that has always eaten insects. And, you know, science is beginning to show why and what those benefits were and continue to be.

And from my understanding, you guys have had studies conducted on your particular products, and I think I've seen a couple of different papers mentioning the benefits. We will touch on that down the track a little bit, but let's keep going. So humans for a long time have been consuming crickets. You speak to people these days, the majority of the public, and you suggest, well, you know, it could be beneficial for the product to reduce our meat consumption and start to introduce things like insect proteins. But the typical reaction you get from people is, yuck. So how do you guys, how do you guys kind of break through that, that, you know, that stigma for people finding insects, you know, like, stretch to consume?

Sure. And there's a lot of different ways to answer it. I think there are different kinds of consumers. There are people that are looking to food and looking at data surrounding that food and the impact that data would have on their longevity. So they're saying, let's assume it's all delicious, that everything on the left is delicious, and everything on the right is delicious. The stuff on the left will help you live longer, it will diminish diabetes, it will diminish obesity, it will have all these wonderful health prognostic outcomes and determinants. And it's yummy and delicious. The food on the right is equally yummy and delicious, but it causes diabetes, it causes obesity, it causes heart disease, it has all these largely negative health outcomes associated with it. And then one is more sustainable, one is less sustainable, and you make your choice. Some people buy food like they buy cars. They're more interested in the car safety record than whether somebody will think they look hot and sexy in that car. And those are the kind of consumers we're looking at, those who Make a lifestyle of healthiness and sustainability an important quotient in their consideration. And, you know, the same way people look dry past a gym, you know, they either think of the value of a membership and the value of exercise as it relates to their longevity and the quality of their longevity, or they drive right by and go buy a big fat hamburger somewhere and sit down and eat it with a pop. There's just different kinds of people looking for different kinds of data and value propositions out of what they eat. But we do have a hurdle to overcome for people to understand that an insect powder in a muffin or putting that cricket on your another kind of a crouton is really no different than crab or lobster or shrimp or mussels or anything like that. In fact, ironically, when we do testing on the crickets, compared to other traditional meat proteins, they're actually much cleaner and. And much less gross from a kind of yucky point of view.

You've raised some very interesting points there, I guess. Firstly about the adoption and the different segments of the market that are more likely to adopt the product. And then you very eloquently moved on to, I guess, the health proposition and also the sustainability benefits the product. I think that's a really excellent point because I know in terms of the sustainability, there's a lot of work going into developing meats pretty much growing in the lab. And, you know, I'd much rather steer towards using something from nature rather than growing something on a tube. So that's really interesting. So in terms of the. In terms of the nutritional profiling, the analysis that you've done on the product, what are you seeing in terms of protein content? The macronutrient profiling of the product.

Yeah. And just before we get there, another analogy I like to offer to the idea that this is a food because the population's growing and disenfranchised, poor people are going to need protein. Here's the analogy I use. Let's say the only liquid on the planet was pop. And one day these kind of weird hippie kind of guys went up into a mountain and they discovered a stream of this kind of weird stuff called water. And then they brought this said water back to the people and had it analyzed and found it was incredibly pure. And when they started experimenting with it, they found all kind of great health outcomes. That's not something that would just be for the poor. That would be for anybody who wanted to improve what they put in their bodies as it relates to how their bodies reacted to what's being put into it. And it would be a no brainer for people to drink more water and less pop. So I've been saying that perhaps insects are to food what pop is to liquid. I mean, what water is to liquid. And to come full circle back to your question just before that, you know, most North Americans or westerners and people in Australia and New Zealand and other places probably get enough protein, albeit not sustainable protein. And there are big issues there. They probably get enough protein. What they don't get is enough prebiotic fiber. And what we're learning is the relationship between prebiotic fiber, the gut microbiota and probiotics. And it turns out that the fiber, the chitin oligosaccharide fiber in the cricket powder may be the healthiest form of fiber on the planet. And a study out of the University of Wisconsin by a woman named Valerie Stull is the first study of its kind to give empirical, objective evidence to support that statement. Another study was done looking at 5 macro micronutrients like iron, magnesium, manganese, copper and zinc. And they found not only were the concentrations of those much higher five species of insects, including crickets, compared to meat, but much more importantly, they were far more bioavailable, meaning the body absorbed them at a much higher rate of efficiency. So again, if you're looking for bang for your buck and you understand that input in equals some kind of output equation in terms of healthiness, longevity, functionality through that longevity, then it's a really a no brainer because the data says the stuff is super good for you.

Absolutely. And just to go back, we might have some Aussies in the audience confused about what pop is. I'm actually, I'm guessing you're referencing soft drink.

Yes. Soda soft drink. Yes.

So just to clarify, but I'm fascinated about the impacts of, you know, the chitin, which is almost akin to a type of fiber that's found in the exoskeleton of the, of the actual the cricket. Is that what you're suggesting?

Yeah, yes, absolutely, yep.

And this fiber from the studies that I'm being reading have in particular impact on extremely important group of bacteria called bifidobacteria. So let's go into a bit of detail in terms of the impacts of chitin on bifidobacteria. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's Bifidobacteria animalis.

Yeah, as far as I know, yes. But I, you know, I'm not a nutritionist or an expert in that regard, but I am happy to try offering Any insight or reflection that I can.

Yeah, go for it.

Yeah. So basically, you know, we know that fiber has an impact on the gut biome. Bad. You know, we wouldn't really call them fiber, but like refined sugars and stuff like that feed the bad bacteria, that better cascades and things of that nature. And healthy prebiotic fiber does the opposite. The thing is that most of the root vegetables we used to farm, like yacon root and other vegetables that were really great with fiber, we don't really farm anymore. And if ancestorially, even whales who eat the krill eat them because of the chitinase fiber, and that impacts their immune systems through the gut biome. So the same thing for and certainly humans. So we, we notice changes when you feed chicken insects, like what's natural to their diets, or shrimp, the survival rates are better, the growth rates are better, and they're generally healthier. So we know the same is true for humans, that a large part of human disease is likely actually originating from an unhealthy microbiota because there's not enough healthy fiber diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Now there's evidence to suggest they actually start in the gut biome. So the next health revolution is going to be around, I think, fiber and the gut biome and its impact as a prebiotic. We need to feed those probiotics, and I don't think the whole solution is just taking probiotics or putting it in a yogurt. I think that's helpful. But if you can add the synergistic effect of feeding, feeding those probiotics, this healthy fiber and getting them to grow naturally in the gut, that would go a long way to improve health outcomes.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll underscore a couple of points there that Jared so beautifully talked about. So bifidobacteria, from my understanding in the research we do, is a very important peacekeeping group of bacteria that we pretty much inherit from our mums during that sort of birthing process. And assuming you're born through a natural way, the inoculation process happens there, and then it's fed pretty much from the breast milk from the mother. So someone like myself, I have a relatively low level of bifidobacteria because I was born very prematurely. So I was born at four months. I haven't spoken about this before, but testing my gut bacteria, I have a very low biferobacteria. So anything that has an effect on bifidobacteria really piques my interest, because I know I'm hamstrung in that regard. So I need to implement strategies to give myself a bit of an edge to boost levels. And I have seen substantial boosts in my level of bifidobacteria using prebiotic fibers like acacia fiber, fosinulin. But I'm really excited to start to investigate with cricket protein and then start to measure through fecal analysis to see what impact that has on the different species of bifidobacteria in my gut. So I just wanted to underscore that and the whole groundswell around the gut bacteria, the, you know, the microbiome, gut health, the importance of fiber is really now starting to move into a mainstream space. I think people get it. The question I have for you, Jared, have you seen any information about that chitin fiber, for want of a better word, and short chain fatty acids?

Yes and no. I mean we know that there are. You mean from the perspective of amino acids or.

What typically happens is with a lot of these prebiotic type fibers, they feed the bacteria, the good bacteria in the gut and then the metabolite which is produced by the bacteria is typically something like butyrate, which is well known short chain fatty acid. But I haven't actually, I'm not versed in this enough to understand or to know whether channel chitin also converts to a short chain fatty acid like butyrate, propionate, lactate, acetate.

Yeah, I think I remember reading something along those lines, but I would, you know, I don't think it's fair for me to comment. I don't know.

Sure, that's cool. What we'll do is we will do some research, James and I, and we will put a link into the show notes to give people more information about the actual types of short chain fatty acids. If Titan has an impact on that. So something that's on my mind is it's really a sideways movement. But what do crickets actually eat?

So crickets will eat anything. They'll eat cardboard, they'll eat rubber, they'll eat anything important that you ask the person you're buying your crickets from or your cricket powder, your cricket bars, that question. We feed the crickets a very high end organic grain recipe or non GMO organic grain recipe for our organic skew. And we have a conventional skew where we can't make those guarantees. But it's basically a grain diet in the future that we can take post consumer waste that's consistent in its nutrition profile, dehydrated and use that as a feed input. But for now we're using grains. The big difference sustainability perspective is the conversion ratio of those grains from feed to food. So meat only converts at about 10%. Where our conversion ratios, we think, well, they're way north of 50%, but we think we'll get them close to 75.

Wowzers. And I don't want to sort of go into an area that breaches your intellectual property and all that kind of stuff, but are you able to share, I guess, what specific grains are in the feed?

Yeah, you know what? I will get that information to you. It's no problem. And you can post another link, but there's some soy and corn alfalfa, I think, and maybe one more, but it's not a problem for you to share. It's just the ratio of those things that makes a big difference.

Sure. That's your intellectual property, so I'd never ask you to impinge on that for sure. But it's good to understand what's in it because I'm a big believer that you are what you eat. But I'm also now starting to realize that you are what you eat, but you also, what you eat, ate in the environment that the actual, the animal or the insect that you are, you're also inheriting the impacts of that environment as well, whether it be light.

The light, yeah. You wonder what has the cost been of feeding insectivore animals like chicken and fish? No insects. And then we're eating those fish and chicken and wondering why we aren't as healthy as we should be. So we're 100% aligned there. And it's another exciting piece of the research to look at. Well, if we do feed salmon or tilapia insects, or at least add them to the diet meaningful way as well as chicken, what happens to all the nutrition, you know, the contextual nutrition value of that food we eat, and from what we've seen anecdotally, is that would be markedly enhanced.

Absolutely. I'm a huge supporter of that concept that whatever you feed the animal, it has a huge impact, or the insect, for that matter, has a huge impact on the end result. Recently I was at a farmer's market and I bought some chicken and I brought it home. I'm not sure whether I've shared this story before, but I brought it home and this chicken literally tasted like fish. I cooked it, it had a fishy taste. Then when I asked the farmer, what do you actually feed this chicken? He fed the chicken fish or some sort of seafood meal. And it actually results in the chicken actually tasting more like Fish than chicken.

Well, the exact same thing happens with crickets or insects. If you feed them a lot of fish meal, too, the cricket powder has a fishy odor.

Oh, wow, that's fascinating. And equally as relevant, the eggs that I buy in Melbourne, they're called bullfrog. Bullfrog eggs. They are the best eggs that I've ever seen. And this lady that actually, she harvests these eggs, she feeds the chickens, they pretty much forage wildly with insects as well as garden scraps. And that is the best quality eggs I have ever seen. And I think it supports your point around the insectable nature of things like chickens.

Absolutely, yeah. 100%.

Cool. James, do you have anything you wanted to add at this point before we segue?

Yeah, sure. I guess just one question I had, Jared, is maybe this is a segue into yours, but just how do I get started with cricket proteins and products? I've never started consuming them. And as we kind of touched on before, I'd be a little bit hesitant to eat a whole cricket straight away. But I'm just wondering, how can someone who's new to it really get started in that area?

Yeah, great question. And I think that's really the opportunity that cricket powder has brought to the table. It basically looks like fine brown sugar. You know, I have it in my shakes every single morning instead of whey. The difference in my gut and my, you know, bowel movements, you know, to get real about this is tremendous. You know, we call it an ace, where you only need one wipe because there's nothing left, my energy levels and everything. And then, of course, you can bake with it. You can add it to muffins, banana, bread. It goes amazingly in a chili, vegetable chili or a soup or something like that. You know, you can sprinkle it over. And some berries. So that is the way. That's the easiest way. It doesn't look offensive. It tastes delicious. And if you add a little bit to something in the morning and a little bit to something in the afternoon and a little bit to something in the evening, then you'll get a lot of protein, a lot of fiber. And the other thing we haven't discussed in the nutrition piece is it's very, very high in B12, about 30 times higher than meat. About 45 micrograms per 100 grams, which is the charts. Only oysters could come close to it. So many people, especially women, are iron and B12 deficient. Iron deficiency anemia is the number one nutritive health issue declared by the WHO in the world. That's why, you know, this isn't. It's not cricket protein, it's cricket food or cricket powder. Protein is 60%, but the other 40% may be even more valuable than that 60%. So, yeah, start with the powder, and I think that's the way to get started. Or with consumer packaged goods like protein bars. There's a couple companies we work with in Australia and a great company in New Zealand that's about to launch a whole bunch of baked good products, breads, and all kinds of very cool stuff like that.

That's wonderful. I think from the sounds of it, it would be a pretty versatile product because the taste is pretty neutral, from what I'm understanding. So it'd be pretty easy to incorporate.

Absolutely, yeah. The taste has a lot to do with inclusion ratios. If you sprinkle a little bit, you're not going to taste much. If you sprinkle a lot, it can have a very earthy kind of flavor. Nutty, earthy, mushroomy flavor. I love it. I'm up to three full tablespoons in my smoothie.

Wow, that's incredible. And I guess just following on to the health impact, the health impacts that you're describing are staggering because I'm thinking there's almost a groundswell of people. Clearly veganism is a big health trend. I think the adoption of veganism is huge. Perhaps someone that's wanting to reduce meat consumption, maybe they're open to reducing meat, maybe even if they're vegetarian and they want to start including this protein. More from a sustainability perspective. But also from what you mentioned, the incredible B12 and iron content, which is going to be an issue for people who are not eating enough of these compounds in their food. So I'm really excited about that.

Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I think for pure vegans, it's probably not something they would touch. But for vegetarians, I think there are three basic tenants. You either are vegetarian for reasons, environmental reasons, or animal welfare reasons. And quite frankly, the crickets, the way we grow them, tick all those boxes, they're obviously sustainable. We're learning how healthy they are. And frankly, I don't think an animal can grow be grown in a more wonderful way. You know, we, in fact, we harvest them just days before they would die anyway, so they live out a full life cycle. It's basically open concept. They have all access to food and water. The skill, the kill step has very little physiologically measurable response. So, you know, as far as having to cull or kill an animal in order to survive, it ticks a lot of those boxes for people who are caring and warm toward that conversation.

And just to dig in a little bit deeper there, just for my understanding, how does the kill step look?

Like right now we're using basically frozen CO2 gas, but I think the future will be microwaving because the studies right now show one zap with the microwave and it's. There's absolutely no stress response or no measurable stress response. So they don't even know that they've died.

Okay, so it sounds like a very humane process.

Yes.

And in terms of. Have you seen this is. This is. We tend to jump around a lot in this podcast, but a lot of fiber type products have an issue with gas production. Like if you tell someone to go and just increase their fiber overnight and they start consuming legumes and lentils and whatnot, there's going to be a bit of a gas blast from the fiber exit or the increased fiber consumption from baseline. Have you seen any data or any anecdotal evidence about fib? Maybe even yourself? Do you notice any bloating or gas production?

Absolutely not, no. No, I've never heard that. It's never come up. I know people that are using it daily, you know. No, not at all.

So this, this might be a good one for people that are actually, I guess, sensitive in the bowels, but also people that maybe are following FODMAP style diets. So. Fodmap? Yeah, so FODMAP is eliminating a lot of these legumes and things that typically cause bloating and gas production.

Yes, no, absolutely. For sure.

And again, I jump around. I apologize, audience. In terms of the lighting environment of the, of the, I guess the production area, the growing area, what type of light does the actual animals need? Because just to give you an understanding, light is becoming increasingly important for James and I and the impact of light on longevity and health. So I'm really interested to know what type of lighting environment these animals are grown under.

So basically we grow them in retrofit chicken barns that have lots of windows, so there's access to light. But remember, crickets generally like to burrow. They like to hide in the dark because they feel protected and safe. So although there's lots of natural light in the buildings, they'll tend to hide in these quote unquote cardboard condos that we raise them in.

Right. So they're getting exposure to, I guess, primarily natural light. Or is there also artificial uv?

Yeah, there's light bulbs there too. Yeah, there's artificial light but there's a lot of natural light coming through the window.

Okay. So there is exposure to, I guess, UV light, but there's also, I guess, the LEDs hanging above.

Yeah, correct.

Yeah, it sounds like a crazy question. James and I are going down this huge lighting rabbit hole at the moment, so it's really just fascinating to know.

Well, listen, living in Canada and seeing the effect of seasonal affective disorder, where there's so little daylight and people have to supplement with vitamin D, which has its own controversy around whether or not it's effective. But believe me, I intimately understand the relationship between how I feel and how much sunlight I'm exposed to.

Totally. We're huge advocates of that exact statement. In Australia, we're going to have a huge issue convincing people that sunlight is important because of our high rates of skin cancer. But that's something that we're working on from a purely scientific perspective and taking the emotion out of it. And that's one of my huge goals, to highlight to people how important life actually is. But we do digress. So if we come back to crickets now, how many is there just one variety or is there different varieties? Are you harvesting at different stages of their life cycle? How does that work?

Yeah, so a few answers. There's about 2,000 species of edible insects. So we're just at the beginning here with crickets. There are multiple different species of crickets, and when you feed them the same food, they have slightly different nutritional and flavor profiles at the end. And no, right now, we harvest all our crickets at the end of their life cycle.

So it's. And what about. I've seen something like a mealworm. What's a mealworm?

Yep, mealworms we do as well, and we're going to start ramping up that production. They're different than crickets because they have two stages, a larva stage and a beetle stage, whereas crickets just come out of an egg and they grow to a full adult cricket. And mealworms are fantastic. They have a slightly. They have a slightly different texture when they're powdered or dehydrated. And they're a wonderful complement to. To entomophagy, you know, and the choice of eating insects, they're, for some people, actually easier. There's no wings or legs or eyes or antenna. Look like a little dehydrated piece of brown rice.

Wow. And from a nutritional perspective, is it the same benefits or different benefits? Do they have that Triton fiber in them?

Absolutely. They're mostly the same. But there hasn't been nearly as much research done on them compared to the crickets.

Okay. Okay, James, any other questions?

I was just interested, Jared, just in the, I guess the whole approach you guys have as a company towards sustainability, finding new ways to help people in the food they're eating. I wonder where that idea started for you and your brothers and how that came into the forefront of the work that you do.

Well, you know, I think both my brothers went to university when the idea of something called environmental studies was brand new. In fact, I think at the university they went to in the mid to late 80s, they were maybe the first people in this course called Environmental Studies. And it was the beginning of this idea of sustainability movement and the impact we're having to begin to study it. And, you know, being raised by parents, you know, who taught us to care, coming from South Africa and learning about apartheid and what's wrong and why we should be different, having a background as Jewish people, maybe there's the sensitivity to oppression of all people and the planet and the animals and everything. And then, you know, I think my choice to go toward it's a sustainable form of medicine. It's generally non invasive. It takes a different approach. Not that allopathic medicine doesn't have tremendous virtues. You know, just like we aren't against meat, you know, chiropractic isn't against allopathy. So I think we were just raised in a culture where caring awareness, quite frankly, giving a shit was something important. And like, I end a lot of my lectures saying is, if there are two tenets my parents taught me and the value that we try to live by is don't be an asshole and leave the planet in a better place than you found it. And if you could just do those two things, you've probably done something good through your life.

Totally. What a beautiful way to close this podcast on those words. And I think we touched on some amazing points about the Earth sustainability. Too much meat consumption, ruining our planet, and having something like this cricket powder made by Entomo Farms, which should go a long way in addressing a lot of these sustainability impacts, as well as being a good substitute for red meat to get your B12 to get your iron, but also prebiotic fiber. What a wonderful food. I can't think of one food that ticks all those boxes. So I'm so excited about this.

I'm not so crazy when I said perhaps what insects are, what water is to liquid, insects are to food. And now you're appreciating why I'm saying something so Bold like that.

Yeah, totally. And intuitively, I think that humans have been probably eating insects for maybe millions of years. It's just in our modern environment, it's especially.

Yeah, it's in everything we eat. The reason why insects are allowed to be sold in New Zealand and Australia and America and Canada and Europe is because there's already an allowance for insects in our food. If we didn't allow insects in our food, 95% of of what's in the grocery store would have to be removed. Because when they harvest grains with those turbines, insects get caught up in that. When they make peanut butter, chocolate, when you eat salads, they say the average human being eats 10 grams of insects a year. So we have always done it only in perhaps extremely freezing cold environments like the Arctic and the north, where there are no insects, then maybe not, but certainly in any warm place. Place. And like a great elder once said to me, part of the reason why is because it was much easier to roll over a log and catch a grub than to hunt a deer. And it was all about energy efficiency in the old days, anthropologically. So there's a great history of first Nations Americans eating insects with aboriginal Australians and Mari and other people from your region of the world as well.

Mm, absolutely. Absolutely. And most people don't realize this, that simple experiment that anybody can do at home. If you take some flour that you bought from the supermarket and you leave it around for a few months, that's gonna be full of weevils, because there's all the eggs that are still present during the, I guess, the processing of the product and the harvesting, growing. They do spray chemicals to address some of these, but they can't fully kill the weevil eggs. So you are already consuming a lot of insects, people.

There you go. Now do it with intention and you'll feel better and you'll make a difference.

Totally. And one final question before we wrap, Jarrod. If there's one thing that people could do to improve their health, digestive health today, what would it be?

Eat more bugs.

A great way to wrap. Thank you so much for your time, Jared. We really appreciate it. And to spreading this message here in Australia for you and the rest of the world, of course.

Awesome. It was such a pleasure to meet you guys and we're excited to be working with some wonderful Australian companies. I'm happy to provide the links to them as well, as well as some guys across the pond in New Zealand. And thank you again for caring to talk about this category the story and inviting me on your show. It was a real pleasure to meet you guys. Hopefully next time we can do it in person.

Awesome. Looking forward to it. Thanks Jared. Take care.

My pleasure. Thank you.

Bye bye bye.

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