"By some experts' estimates, the average person inadvertently downs about one pound of insect parts a year, in foods as varied as chocolate (which can contain 60 insect components per 100 grams by law in the United States), peanut butter (30 insect parts per 100 grams) and fruit juice (up to five fruitfly eggs and one to two larvae for every 250 milliliters)."

In light of the United Nations' recent plea for increased insect consumption, I decided to take the insects by the antennae and join the 2 billion people worldwide who deliberately make creepy, crawly creatures a part of their regular or special occasion diet.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization's report released Monday at a press conference in Rome, the planet would be a lot better off environmentally speaking, not to mention more cheaply, safely and sustainably fed if more people incorporated locusts, beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, worms, grubs and the like into their meal routines.

The big problem as the researchers see it: the ick factor. As Americans, many of us are geographically separated from the source of our food. It's often much easier to accept lab-created, industrially-formed X-Treem Cheez-O Blasters or highly-preserved, artificially flavored, over-salted microwaveable entrees as viable snack and meal solutions, over creatures we're conditioned to swat away, zap with garden pesticides or crush with our shoes. Frankly, I wasn't entirely sure I could do it."