You want me to eat what?

“You want me to eat what??!!!” my 11-year-old daughter asked incredulously while examining the small package of flavoured snacks I’d brought home for the family to try. “There’s no way I’m doing that.” They were bugs. Honey mustard-flavoured crickets, to be exact, a collection of whole-roasted insects covered in seasoning and dropped into a little plastic baggie. They looked like … well, they looked like a bunch of dead bugs — legs, eyes and antennae all still very much attached — covered in a fine dust. There was a certain ick factor, to be sure.

But we have a rule in our house that applies to parents and children alike when it comes to food: you have to try everything once. It’s really the only way to get picky toddlers to try anything other than Cheerios and grilled cheese covered in ketchup. Bugs, however, were the supreme test of this guideline.

I found them, funnily enough, at our local butcher shop, the kind of place that features locallysourced meat, eggs and vegetables along with other outrageously expensive (and divinely good) prepared products. The bugs are from the amusingly named “Entomo Farms” — entomology is the study of insects — a family-run operation in Norwood, Ont., just east of Peterborough.

They make a pretty compelling case for eating bugs on their website, pointing out that “whole roasted insects contain 70 per cent protein, more calcium than milk, more iron than spinach, and almost 20 times the amount of B12 as beef.”

The company is dedicated to addressing what they believe is a growing food, uh, crunch with the world’s population due to reach nine billion in 2050. They claim that the resources needed to create insect protein is significantly less than what is needed to produce the meat equivalent, particularly in terms of water consumption.

They also use environmentally friendly farming practices that also — get this — treat the insects as “humanely as possible for their short time here on Earth.”

They point out that over 2 billion people eat insect protein every day. Not many in North America, though, where most interaction with insects comes via squishing them dead (and not eating them afterwards.) Rather predictably, my kids were entirely grossed out by the idea of swallowing dead bugs.

But a rule is a rule. And like Sam I Am and his Green Eggs & Ham, my kids had something of a culinary epiphany: they were actually pretty good. The bugs have a bit of crunch but no real flavour to speak of, just a vehicle for whatever seasoning they are sprinkled with.

My youngest ate the whole bag and asked us to buy more, the most convincing sign of all. Of course, the motivation was only partially culinary: she wants to take them to school to gross out her friends, then see if she can convince them to try it.

I can guess the response: crickets.