A Better Microwave and Cricket Flour – Thursday, March 12, 2015

Mark Rober, inventor, demonstrated a new type of microwave with thermal vision on YouTube. Infared cameras watched the food as it cooks and the front of the microwave displays a heat map. Therefore, you can watch the colors change and when it turns white, it is done.

You can also watch your food cook on your phone and add cook time to your food.

Microwave Magic:

• Onion – reduces tears
• Beans – a quicker soak
• Hard sugar – softens it
• Herbs – dries them out
• Honey – no more crystals
• Bread – less stale
• Veggies – easier to peel

Two billion people worldwide eat bugs as their main source of protein. Pat Crowley makes flour out of crickets. 3 oz. of cricket flour is the same amount of protein as eating a 6 oz. steak. Crickets are also more digestible. Crickets only take 5 weeks to fully mature compared to a cow which takes about 2 years. Crickets are an environmentally friendly way to feed a large population.

Pat created the company called Chapul, which means cricket or grasshopper. The Aztecs would gather them, dry them in the sun, and then grind them into flour. Pat dries crickets in a convection oven and then creates cricket flour energy bars which are full of protein.