The feature-length movie Bugs on the Menu will soon be served across Canada beginning Tuesday, October 11 (9pm ET / 6pm PT) on CBC Canada’s Documentary Channel! If you can’t PVR this show, it does repeat again on the 16th (9 pm ET/ 10pm PT) and hopefully change a few culinary minds.

When I first saw this movie during the Victoria Feast, Food and Film Festival, I was all over it like ants to sugar because I have always been open to the thought of adding an unusual crunch to any of my meals. Samples were offered and I was anxious to see if a vendor would appear to offer up grasshopper (there was). To imagine the staples — mealworms or crickets — added to hamburger only has me salivating. But the question of which source has more protein needs to be asked. Some people may get surprised at the fact that crickets contain more per ounce than a similar slice of bovine, and this detail is just one of many factoids revealed in the program.

Filmmakers Ian Toews and Mark Bradley worked on this film for over two years, and in what they present should start a new wave of new superfoods to consider nibbling at on the dinner table. In the official press release:

Sustainable, extremely protein-rich, needing very little food, water, or space to grow & harvest, bugs have, for many millennia, been a traditional part of the human diet in many cultures. Now there’s a growing interest in edible insects all over the world, including many western countries. Bugs are not only the green solution. Frankly, it may come down to a matter of our survival. Maybe now is the right time for one of those proverbial ‘paradigm shifts’ in how we think about things.

Bugs on the Menu premiered at the Edmonton Film Festival several months ago and it’s influence is certainly spreading to other cities like Calgary, Alberta and Sudbury, Ontario. While Canadians’ interest is certainly being piqued, there will soon be screenings in the USA (beginning in Indiana) and ensuring its reach (tendrils and all) spreads across Australia during the Environmental Film Festival. Screenings have already taken place in Melbourne, and Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney are next.

To see where this film will play next, please visit the official webpage here.