Hello there and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast. I'm your host, Monica Reinagel.

And this week I heard from two different listeners who had both heard scary stories about

people ending up in the hospital after eating certain foods that we generally think of as

good for us. But first, on a somewhat related note, I also got a note from Sherry in response

to my recent episode on insect protein. She wanted to point out that if someone has an allergy

to shellfish, they should be very careful about consuming insects such as crickets or mealworms.

Now, if you missed that episode, you may be very surprised to learn that crickets and mealworms

are growing in popularity as a source of high quality protein that doesn't have the environmental

or ethical baggage of larger livestock, but it's true. You can now find cricket-powered protein bars

at your local health food store. However, as Sherry correctly points out, there are some people

who are going to want to steer clear of this trend. Both crickets and mealworms contain

chitin, an allergenic protein that's also found in crustaceans. So if you have a severe allergy to

shellfish, you could have a potentially life-threatening reaction to crickets or mealworms.

The same is true of cicadas, by the way. I happen to live in a part of North America that

experiences the massive emergence of the brewed cicadas every 17 years. We just had one in the

summer of 2021, and it is really something to witness. For several weeks, the ground and the

air are literally thick with these big beetles who are quite harmless. They don't bite or sting,

although they are terrible flyers. They'll just crash right into you, or the tree next to you,

or pretty much anything even remotely in their path. The sheer number of them during these

emergencies does make life a little inconvenient for a few weeks. They cover every surface,

and they make an awful lot of noise. In any case, I've now lived through two such emergencies,

and both times, a few folks end up in the local hospital with allergic reactions after indulging

...