Eat more insects, scientists say

Graham Tibbetts, The Telegraph 2 Jun 08;

Eating insects such as wasps and grasshoppers has health benefits and should be encouraged in the Western diet, scientists have said.

The bugs are rich in protein and some minerals and are lower in cholesterol than beef or pork.

Research carried out at the National Autonomous University of Mexico found that 1,700 species are eaten in at least 113 countries across the world, usually as a substitute for meat.

In Mexico, grasshoppers are sold by the pound in markets and fried before being eaten while the larvae of giant butterfly sell for the equivalent of £12.50-a-plate in some restaurants.

Colombians eat ants, which they grind and spread on bread, and termites while Filipinos are partial to grasshoppers, crickets and locusts.

In Papua New Guinea, moths, dragonflies and beetles are popular when boiled or roasted over an open fire and the late Emperor Hirohito of Japan's favourite dish was wasps with rice.

Grasshoppers have 20 grams of protein and just 6 g of fat per 100g while fire ants have 13.9g of protein and 3.5g of fat. Crickets are sources of iron, zinc and calcium.

Eating insects also keep puts less strain on the environment because cultivating insects requires forest to be preserved rather than felled.

David George Gordon, a Seattle-based naturalist and author, says: "Insects are the most valuable, underused and delicious animals in the world.

"Maybe we in the West are the weirdos."

In February, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation staged a special conference on the benefits of eating insects - known as entomophagy.

Patrick Durst of the FAO admitted that Westerners will take some persuading before tucking in to insects.

"We're not going to convince Europeans and Americans to go out in big numbers and start eating insects."

But he held out hope that insects would catch on with the more adventurous, especially if they "don't have to look the bug in the eye as they're eating it."

Eating insects: save the planet and munch a moth
The Telegraph 4 Jun 08;

Eating insects could help the world's problems. Don't knock it till you've tried it, says Adam Edwards

A new wheeze from left field has been proposed this week to help solve the big issues of climate change and mass starvation - eating insects.

Scientists from Mexico, where grasshoppers are sold by the pound, have reported that the human consumption of creepy-crawlies could "contribute to sustainable development" because cultivating the small invertebrate would require forests to be preserved rather than felled and, furthermore, would also reduce the world consumption of meat.

While we must applaud these singular findings by the researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico - which also unearthed the fact that 1,700 species of bug are eaten in at least 113 countries across the globe - it should be noted that a solitary Englishman came to a remarkably similar conclusion some 120 years earlier.

In 1885 the entomologist Vincent M Holt published his only known work, entitled 'Why Not Eat Insects?' His skinny book, which included a comprehensive history of those who had feasted on the winged and multi-legged creatures, made the then radical proposal that insects should supplement the diet of the English peasant.

"How can the farmer most successfully battle with the insect devourers of his crops?" wrote Holt. "I suggest they be collected by the poor as food, thus pleasantly and wholesomely varying their present diet while, at the same time, conferring a great benefit on the agricultural world."

According to Holt, the Victorian yokel was already using woodlice pills, snails and slugs as cures for various ills and, he added: "I myself knew a labourer in the west of England who was in the habit of picking up and eating small white slugs as titbits, just as he would have picked wild strawberries."

This enthusiasm extolling the epicurean delights of insects was not new. The book claimed that Moses encouraged the people of Israel to eat locusts, beetles and grasshoppers (Leviticus, Chapter XI, Verse 22); Aristotle wrote that the "most polished of Greeks enjoyed cicadas"; while "Aelian tells us that in his time an Indian king served up as dessert a dish of roasted grubs".

The Romans fattened the larvae of the stag beetle for the table; the French astronomer Jerome Lalande spread spiders on bread, while the author of The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, declared the larvae of the sphinx moth "delicious".

Since the publication of Holt's book, 20th-century scientists subsequently discovered that insects are the equal of shellfish in providing high-quality protein and are an excellent source of nutrients such as iron, calcium and vitamin B.

Their nutritious worth is proven by the Australian Aborigines, who still feast on bogong moths, witchetty grubs and the honeybag bee. Meanwhile, Japanese restaurants serve boiled wasp larvae, Nigerians eat roast termites (and even have termite stock cubes), and dragonflies are chucked on the barbie in Bali.

Closer to home, chef Lars Scheuble at the Soda restaurant in Berlin offers his customers cockroach pasta and sautéed maggots with green leaves.

Our own celebrity chef, Heston Blumenthal, serves snail porridge, while in Bristol the exotic food supplier Osgrow sells crickets (smoky bacon and Thai green curry flavours), locusts (in packs of 10), chocolate ants and BBQ-flavoured worm crisps.

I have to admit I am not an enthusiast of such delicacies. I once ate a fried locust, which tasted like whitebait stuffed with buttered toast, and got the legs stuck in my teeth.

My father, who found Holt's tome in a second-hand bookshop, insisted after reading it that the family tried caterpillar. My mother refused point blank, my sister was sick and I spat mine out before it had touched the sides of my mouth.

But perhaps I was too hasty. I notice at the end of 'Why Not Eat Insects?' that there are some interesting seasonal menus. They not only feature boiled neck of mutton with wire-worm sauce, stag beetle larvae on toast and slug soup but also braised beef with caterpillar.

Perhaps if my crawling larvae had been presented to me in such grand gastronomic fashion I would have gobbled it down with much more gusto - particularly if I had known that I was saving the planet.