Eating beetles and wasps to save the planet is enough to put you right off
your food
Entomophagy. We should,
apparently, be doing more of it - at least according to a report published
last week by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The trouble is
that the case the report makes for entomophagy - eating insects - is hardly
inspiring.
Apparently, lots
of people around the world eat bugs. In Mexico, there are 250 different kinds of
insects consumed. In Thailand, the FAO report assures us, crispy-fried
locusts and beetles are popular, adding:
More than 1,900 insect species have been documented in literature as edible, most of them in tropical countries. The most commonly eaten insect groups are beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, cicadas, leaf and planthoppers, scale insects and true bugs, termites, dragonflies and flies.’
The thought of
eating bugs will make many people want to barf. Even if they taste okay - my
limited experience suggests that they are a bit nutty but don’t really taste of
very much - they sure don’t look appetising. That said, squeamishness should be
no barrier to trying something new. My first experience of eating octopus was
in a Hong Kong sushi bar. Looking down at the three mini octopi in the dish I
had mistakenly selected, their little rubbery tentacles wobbling, was utterly
unappealing. But, being a Brit alone in a strange town, I forced them down,
almost gagging at the thought of chewing through their bodies.
How times change.
The day the FAO report came out, I found myself in a trendy new eaterie in
London’s grimy-but-fashionable Hoxton district ordering… octopus. And it was
delicious. The problem wasn’t the wriggly sea creature, it was me.
Eating insects
isn’t that far removed from eating crustaceans, either. Prawns, crayfish and
other crustaceans are arthropods. Just like insects, they are all jointed legs,
exoskeletons and segmented bodies. If you’ve scoffed a prawn cocktail, maybe
you should consider trying some chunky caterpillar in a marie rose sauce
instead.
It’s not as if
eating the ‘nasty bits’ is something entirely alien to us, either. In fact,
it’s downright fashionable, if the success of London restaurants like St John
is anything to go by. And we seem quite content to eat sausages and pies, which
feature all the less-than-attractive parts of our favourite animals turned into
something a bit more appealing. So why not insects?
The trouble is
that the case for eating insects is rarely made on aesthetic grounds. Few
people are willing to declare that eating wasps or grasshoppers tastes
particularly good. ‘Interesting’, maybe, but nobody seems to be rushing to open
a chain of fast-food joints serving beetleburgers. Instead, the case for dining
on bugs is made in more pragmatic terms: saving ourselves and saving the
planet.
So it is fear of
an overpopulated planet, leading to the need for more food production, that is
encouraging interest in insect production for food. It is the fact that bugs
are more efficient at converting feed into something edible, reducing the use
of resources and cutting down on greenhouse-gas emissions, too, that is getting
scientists and policy wonks excited.
But chomping on
larvae is not my idea of a good time, nor an inspiring vision for the future. I
honestly don’t care if bugs are ‘a highly nutritious and healthy food source
with high fat, protein, vitamin, fibre and mineral content’, as the report
declares. I’m not suffering from any deficiency diseases, thanks all the same,
and I don’t really want to eat pests and pest eggs for my dinner. If people in
poorer parts of the world are consuming insects, I rather suspect it is not -
deep-fried snacks aside - out of choice but necessity.
If someone can
turn insects into a tasty treat, I’ll certainly give them a go. There could be
a whole new world of cordon bleu buglife to enjoy. But there
is something rather offensive about the idea that, rather than having the
ambition to find ways of allowing everyone to enjoy the foods we really want to
eat, humans should just make do with eating what we would otherwise swat.
Being corralled into eating beetles and wasps
to save the planet is enough to put you right off your food
by Rob Lyons
Entomophagy. We should,
apparently, be doing more of it - at least according to a report published
last week by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The trouble is
that the case the report makes for entomophagy - eating insects - is hardly
inspiring.
Apparently, lots
of people around the world eat bugs. In Mexico, there are 250 different kinds of
insects consumed. In Thailand, the FAO report assures us, crispy-fried
locusts and beetles are popular, adding:
More than 1,900
insect species have been documented in literature as edible, most of them in
tropical countries. The most commonly eaten insect groups are beetles,
caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, cicadas, leaf
and planthoppers, scale insects and true bugs, termites, dragonflies and
flies.’
The thought of
eating bugs will make many people want to barf. Even if they taste okay - my
limited experience suggests that they are a bit nutty but don’t really taste of
very much - they sure don’t look appetising. That said, squeamishness should be
no barrier to trying something new. My first experience of eating octopus was
in a Hong Kong sushi bar. Looking down at the three mini octopi in the dish I
had mistakenly selected, their little rubbery tentacles wobbling, was utterly
unappealing. But, being a Brit alone in a strange town, I forced them down,
almost gagging at the thought of chewing through their bodies.
How times change.
The day the FAO report came out, I found myself in a trendy new eaterie in
London’s grimy-but-fashionable Hoxton district ordering… octopus. And it was
delicious. The problem wasn’t the wriggly sea creature, it was me.
Eating insects
isn’t that far removed from eating crustaceans, either. Prawns, crayfish and
other crustaceans are arthropods. Just like insects, they are all jointed legs,
exoskeletons and segmented bodies. If you’ve scoffed a prawn cocktail, maybe
you should consider trying some chunky caterpillar in a marie rose sauce
instead.
It’s not as if
eating the ‘nasty bits’ is something entirely alien to us, either. In fact,
it’s downright fashionable, if the success of London restaurants like St John
is anything to go by. And we seem quite content to eat sausages and pies, which
feature all the less-than-attractive parts of our favourite animals turned into
something a bit more appealing. So why not insects?
The trouble is
that the case for eating insects is rarely made on aesthetic grounds. Few
people are willing to declare that eating wasps or grasshoppers tastes
particularly good. ‘Interesting’, maybe, but nobody seems to be rushing to open
a chain of fast-food joints serving beetleburgers. Instead, the case for dining
on bugs is made in more pragmatic terms: saving ourselves and saving the
planet.
So it is fear of
an overpopulated planet, leading to the need for more food production, that is
encouraging interest in insect production for food. It is the fact that bugs
are more efficient at converting feed into something edible, reducing the use
of resources and cutting down on greenhouse-gas emissions, too, that is getting
scientists and policy wonks excited.
But chomping on
larvae is not my idea of a good time, nor an inspiring vision for the future. I
honestly don’t care if bugs are ‘a highly nutritious and healthy food source
with high fat, protein, vitamin, fibre and mineral content’, as the report
declares. I’m not suffering from any deficiency diseases, thanks all the same,
and I don’t really want to eat pests and pest eggs for my dinner. If people in
poorer parts of the world are consuming insects, I rather suspect it is not -
deep-fried snacks aside - out of choice but necessity.
If someone can
turn insects into a tasty treat, I’ll certainly give them a go. There could be
a whole new world of cordon bleu buglife to enjoy. But there
is something rather offensive about the idea that, rather than having the
ambition to find ways of allowing everyone to enjoy the foods we really want to
eat, humans should just make do with eating what we would otherwise swat.
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