About

Daniella Martin is the host of Girl Meets Bug, the insect cooking/travel show. She also blogs about bugs for the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniella-martin

She is passionate about teaching people that insects are fabulous food –in addition to being the most environmentally-efficient animal protein source on the planet! Her dream is to increase public awareness and acceptance of edible insects, with the ultimate goals of helping to solve world hunger, support indigenous people, and reduce pesticide use with this cheap, eco-friendly source of protein.

Daniella Martin. Photo by Jeffrey Werner

Daniella became fascinated with insect cuisine while conducting anthropological fieldwork in the Yucatan, Mexico. While living amongst the Maya and studying traditional indigenous food, medicine and culture, she learned that ancient peoples of this region used to supplement their diets with insects, partially because of the lack of large game. Intrigued, she began to research in earnest, and started her search for insects to try. To this date, she has eaten bees, crickets, cockroaches, fly pupae, wax worms, mealworms, silkworms, hornworms, bamboo worms, grasshoppers, walking sticks, katydids, scorpions, tailless whip scorpion, snails, stink bugs, tarantulas, cicadas, leaf-cutter ants, ant pupae, dung beetles, termites,  wasps and wasp brood, butterfly caterpillars, dragonflies, and water bugs. So far, her favorites are wax worms, bees, wasps and fried bamboo worms.