Would You Eat Bugs If They Were Packaged Nicely?

A Belgian startup called SexyFood wants to make the prospect of eating bugs — which have a great deal of health benefits and require very few resources to farm on a massive level — less gross so that there's a chance we'll all start eating more of them. If you're wondering why, read about how the world will need to produce twice our current level of food by the year 2050.

SexyFood's approach is to present its insect inventory, from rhino beetles and small crickets to yellow scorpions ("famous for being [an] aphrodisiac, these small scorpions will excite all your senses"), as a high-end, luxurious eating experience.

"In our culture, it's not usual to eat insects, so to present it as normal food would be a little bit too obvious," packaging designer Steven van Boxtel told Fast Company. "Our culture also sees it as a little bit disgusting. The idea was to avoid that and present it like an experience."

As long as SexyFood's products make people more open to the idea of putting a bug in your mouth, that's enough of a start.

"If you're eating this product, you're not eating it because you like to eat insects, since these don't exist in our society," says Van Boxtel. "It's more, okay, 'I want to try something new, I want something original.' That's why we hid almost everything about the insects — they're more eating a concept than they're eating insects."

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Karen Lo is an associate editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @appleplexy.