South Africans in shock as special milk from insects enters market

If you easily get nauseated by insects, then this might not be for you.

Entomilk, a special milk produced from farmed insects by a local South African company, Gourmet Grubb has begun selling on the South African market.

Scores of people are already not enthused with the product, raising safety concerns. But the company behind it has been emphasizing on the nutritious benefits of the insect milk.

“Think of Entomilk as a sustainable, nature-friendly, nutritious, lactose-free, delicious, guilt-free dairy alternative of the future,” the company said.

It added that the product has a high level of protein content and also rich in minerals such as calcium, iron and zinc.

About two billion people around the world are already eating insects as part of their diet.

“From ants to beetle larvae – eaten by tribes in Africa and Australia as part of their subsistence diets – to the popular, crispy-fried locusts and beetles enjoyed in Thailand, it is estimated that insect-eating is practiced regularly by at least 2 billion people worldwide,” according to the 2013 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The report said that many people eat insects because they consider them as quite healthy and a nutritious alternative to common protein sources like chicken, beef, pork and fish.

Entomilk comes two years after a special milk from the insect, the viviparous cockroach, named Diploptera punctate, was produced and introduced into the market.

Indian researchers subsequently conducted a study and found that the cockroach milk is estimated to contain over three times the energy of the equivalent mass of cow milk.

The milk will soon hit supermarkets, to the amazement of scientists who were not expecting to find the product in the market that soon.

The milk subsequently had safety and name issues.