A Canadian university student seems to have come up with a novel way to grow his own food and compost his rubbish at the same time - using crickets.

 

Jakub Dzamba's invention allows you to raise and eat your own batch of crickets every two months, CBC news reports. He keeps his crickets in a clear plastic box in his kitchen, feeding them scraps of rubbish that might otherwise go onto a compost heap. The crickets are harvested by putting them in the freezer, where Dzamba says they are "euthanized" and can be cooked like any other frozen food.

 

Dzamba is introducing his home cricket farms at Montreal's Eating Innovation Conference, which focuses on entomophagy - or eating insects. Eating insects wasn't easy at first, he says. "You kill bugs all the time, but when you raise them and have them on your desk for two months, I just didn't have the heart to put them in the fridge and kind of euthanize them." But he's now very enthusiastic about the idea. "I think it can make the world a better place," he says.

 

Conference organizer Aruna Handa agrees. "They're very nutritious, with comparable protein to meat, more omega-3 fats than fish."A recent UN report urged people to eat insects as a way to combat world hunger and improve their nutrition.