Otsumami are snacks for eating while enjoying alcohol, and in Japan, this is a pretty big part of drinking culture. In izakaya (Japanese pubs), very few people would think of just ordering drinks alone with no accompanying eats.

With so much importance placed on beer snacks, it’s imperative to choose wisely, and bug-eating advocate company MNH have come up with an unconventional snack which is not only tasty but also environmentally friendly. A whole range of treats made from crickets.

So if you bring these snacks to your next drinking party and get a few raised eyebrows, you can alleviate all your friends’ worries by reeling off the wealth of nutritional and environmental benefits that crickets boast as a foodstuff.

The amount of nutrients they contain, such as protein, calcium and iron, make them a particularly nutritionally efficient food. Also, compared to farm animals, the environmental effects of rearing crickets are overwhelmingly small. Thanks to this, MNH wonder, can crickets save the world? It's worth a try if all it takes is opting for some bug-laced snacks next time you attend a drinking party.

For example, MNH's otsumami senbei, have been formulated to appeal to the Japanese palette and to go perfectly with a cold glass of beer.

The brown rice snacks are made with just three trusty ingredients, brown rice, organic crickets and salt. MNH even suggest that these can be consumed as cereal!

Unlike the other cracker snacks which hide their not-so-secret ingredient well, the ‘Super Cricket Otsumami’ aren’t for the faint hearted. These obviously cricket snacks come in a range of flavours such as garlic.

All of MNH's world-saving snacks can be bought on their online store.


By - Jess.