ONE day soon, you could be having tea with your ants and enjoying some lovely grub, all the while benefit­ing from vitamin bee.

That sentence may look like an excerpt from a dictionary of schoolboy howlers, but it could become a culinary reality.

The citizens of Glasgow were yesterday confronted with a pop-up "pestaurant", part of an initiative by pest control firm Rentokil aimed at promoting the sustainability of insects as an alternative food source. On the menu were such delights as scorpion brittle, cheddar cheese mealworms and salt and vinegar crickets.

There is a serious message behind the frivolity; the United Nations insists that eating insects, which are rich in protein, fats and minerals, has a big part to play in the fight against world hunger.

The big problem, though, is largely cultural. We in Britain can just about thole the idea of eating snails, but draw the line at anything with more than four legs. For the moment, the solution lies in disguise - bugs tend to come deep-fried and dressed up in novelty flavourings.

Perhaps we should welcome this spoonful of sugarcoating. It is difficult enough to get children to eat their greens, never mind their grasshoppers.