Would you like flies with that?

I blame my mother and other well meaning but misinformed parents. She never failed to mention the world's fastest and aeronautically amazing insect without slurring it as "dirty" or, more commonly, "filthy". As a consequence there were only two responses to sighting a fly I can recall making as a child.

If I was outdoors I'd attempt to squash it between my open hand and anything it was sitting on, except my crutch, or Satan, our dysfunctional pet Doberman. And if the fly was inside, I would pursue it relentlessly until I could either pound is so violently its innards squirted outwards or kill it with one of any number of specialist weapons my mother stored under the kitchen sink beside the brightly coloured dishwashing liquid and tins of dried out shoe polish.

There was a plastic fly swat which facilitated chemical-free annihilation as I practised my badminton. And there was a selection of aerosol cans of poison which their makers had trained everyone in our family to refer to calmly as, "fly spray". On the occasions when I had an audience I would invariably select the whippy fly swat and demonstrate my astonishing hand-eye co-ordination, first by attempting to forehand smash the zooming speck in mid-flight and, finally, by taking up the lesser challenge of splatting it against a window or wall or sister while the unsuspecting creature (the fly, not the sister) was taking a breather.

When I was alone however, I would inevitably grab one of the pressurised cans of instant death and release at the unsuspecting fly so much of the "kind to sensitive noses" contents that I was never certain whether the victim had died by poisoning or drowning.

During my life I have hunted and murdered countless individual flies and mass exterminated many more, all without ever troubling my conscience to adjudicate on the behaviour. It is only in recent years that I've come to regard the fly more as one of evolution's finer products than as the valueless pest my elders taught me to revile.

It's true that flies, who frequently begin their relatively short lives in greater quantities of excrement than most incompetent humans can get themselves into over decades, can carry millions of germs on their hairy little legs. And there's no disputing that they spit on every food scrap they wish to dissolve before slurping it up like a caustic saliva thickshake. But despite these behaviours, which are arguably as revolting as many men's recreational flatulence and associated TV viewing habits, flies are potentially delicious.

Yes, like pigs, which most people might consider to have even worse eating rituals and be even more at home frolicking in acrid, mud-sloppy faeces, flies are an excellent source of bite-size protein. And they're virtually fat-free. According to the latest research on Entomophagy (insect eating) there are currently 1,462 recorded species of edible insects and many of them have a better 'feed-to meat' ratio than do beef, lamb, chicken or pork. For example, 100 grams of cricket contains just 121 calories, 12.9g of protein, 5.5g of fat, 5.1g of carbohydrates, 75.8 mg of calcium, 185.3 mg of phosphorus, 9.5 mg of iron, 0.36mg of thiamine, 1.09 mg of riboflavin and 3.10 mg of niacin. Admittedly the same quantity of ground beef contains 10.6g more protein but it also has 288.2 calories and an artery-choking 21.2g of fat.

Now, if the thought of French Flies (lightly grilled flies in a white wine sauce) or Thick Fly Soup doesn't have you salivating at quite the rate your favourite restaurant meal or rock star might encourage, consider incorporating some insect flour in the next batch of currant buns you bake.

If even that's a little hard to swallow, think about what's best for the planet, rather than your palate. The inescapable truth is that raising flies, or any insect for that matter, is very simple and environmentally friendly. You can farm them in your spare room for a bit of extra cash and nobody, apart from the occasional guest, will know. There's no need for chemical fertilising, veterinary bills, ranch-style fencing, highly trained dogs or expensive musterers on horses or in helicopters. And surely nobody, not even the whale, dolphin and tree lovers, will complain about breeding and butchering flies.

No, I think we'll be happily eating Fly Supreme from the local Chinese long before we see anyone wearing a serious 'Save the Fly' t-shirt.Richard Clarke is the Executive Creative Director of Western Australian advertising agency, BC&Y and co-creator of the collection of humorous Australian artwork, Fly Art which can be viewed at selected galleries around Australia and at flyartgallery.com.