If you’re looking to make a healthy food change in anticipation of the summer season, you might want to consider bugs. That’s right, bugs.

According to a new study, some creepy crawlies are more nutritious than a piece of steak or chicken.

Results from the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition research found that crickets, honeybees, mealworms and mopane caterpillars in particular, are all nutritious options.

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Two ranking systems were used in the study to determine what was “nutritious”.

The first was the Ofcom model, which produces a 1-100 score from looking at the levels of energy, salt, saturated fat and sugars in a 100g sample of food.

The second ranking is known as the Nutrient Value Scores. NVS uses a similar method, but also takes into account the amount of vitamins and calcium values in the food.

According to the Ofcom model results, there isn’t too much of a difference between bug meat and traditional meat.

Only silkworm and cricket slightly beats beef, pork and chicken offal for nutrition.

Photo: European Journal of Clinical Nutrition

However, it is a different story when nutrients are included in the NVS rankings.

Photo: European Journal of Clinical Nutrition

Only pork and pork offal beat caterpillar and silkworm meat.

Most remarkably, beef and chicken are dwarfed by every single bug tested.