2014届中考阅读CD篇.doc

2013.1 东城 C Do termites（白蚁）sound delicious? If you were living in Mexico or Thailand or Kenya, the idea of eating insects（昆虫）might not seem strange and unusual to you at all. For thousands of years, insect-eating, has been common practice among many of the world’s people. According to insect-eaters around the world, insects are tasty. “When they are cooked, I find termites really delicious,” Arnold Van Huis of Wageningen University in the Netherlands said. Van Huis is an insect scientist. He also studies insect-eating. He has traveled the world to learn how different groups of people collect insects and prepare them as food. Insect fans say insects are not only tasty, they are also nutritious（有营养的）. Many are full of protein, vitamins and minerals. Van Huis is working with other scientists to encourage insect-eating. According to the United Nations, the world’s population is now almost 7 billion. It is expected to reach 9 billion before 2050. By that time, the need for meat is expected to double. Raising animals such as cows and sheep requires large areas of farmland, and feeding the animals can be expensive. “We have to find other choicesof meat,” Van Huis says. “One good choice is eating insects.” Raising insects, which are able to live in crowded quarters, requires less land, says Van Huis. Insects are also cheaper to feed, since they can eat food scraps, such as potato skin. Not only can insects eat our scraps, but also they require much less food and water than cows or sheep. “A cow wastes most of its energy just keeping warm,” Brian Fisher, an insect scientist in the U.S. says. But since insects are cold-blooded, they use more of what they eat to grow. For insect-eating to become the mainstream, Fisher says people must have a chance to sample delicious, ready-to-eat insects. If you want a try, it is possible to order insect dishes at a few restaurants. 53. What do you know from the first paragraph? A. Insect-eating has a long history. B. People c