Who said that men and women are equal? Well, sure they are, at least in theory, when we talk about “rights,” but not when it comes to what they eat. Recent studies show that men and women need different diets.

Starting from the premise that diets strongly influence lifespan and reproduction, scientists from the University of Sydney and Massey University have concluded that “we want to eat or, if you like, what we’re programmed to eat, is not necessarily best for us.”

After long-term studies on (no more and no less than) crickets, the scientists discovered that the lifespan of both male and females (remember: crickets!) is maximized on high-carbohydrate and low protein diets.

“Male and female crickets maximize their fitness on different diets,” says UNSW’s Dr Alexei Maklakov, the study’s lead author. “Despite that, the dietary preferences of the sexes are very similar. Instead of selecting foods in a sex-specific manner, males and females select ‘intermediate’ diets that are less than optimal for both sexes.”

How is a study on crickets relevant for humans? We didn’t necessarily need a study on crickets to conclude that men and women need different diets. The members of the “Weight Watchers” program already know that, or at least a careful analysis of the diet of the expectant mothers should point that diets are important.

But according to Associate Professor Rob Brooks, Director of the Evolution and Ecology Research Centre at the University of New South Wales:

“What men and women need to eat might be more dramatically different than we had realized. However, men and women eat very similar diets and our results suggest that our tastes and food preferences could be a shared compromise, as they are in crickets.”

The study does not reveal whether fried crickets are good for the human diet.