Cheese mite on toast.

THE French, who still ban our beef, are serving us up a new delicacy... cheese mites.

They scatter the tiny parasites over certain soft cheeses to "add flavour."

And this picture, taken through an electron microscope, shows two bugs doing what comes naturally on the rind of a cheese from the Auvergne area of France.

French gourmets swear the microscopic bugs add flavour and have even been known to spread the creatures directly on to toast.

Cheesemakers say the flavour is down to the beasties - the Acarus siro mite - shedding their skins within the cheese and laying their eggs.

Experts in the Auvergne say true food lovers will cut a slice of cheese including the rind and will eat it, bugs an all.

The Acarus mites are not unlike the common dust mites that live in beds, clothes and carpets.

They are actually distant cousins of edible crustaceans such as lobsters and crabs... just much, much smaller.

And they are not the only ones dabbling in mites. The bugs have even become the latest attraction at Disney World in Florida.

There it's not man eating mite, but mite eating mite.

Disney's 150-strong gardening team are using the insects as an alternative to pesticides and results have been good, with chemical use down 75 per cent.

But the costs are very high. The mites are difficult to rear and are worth more than their weight than gold.