Eating insects is commonplace in many countries of the world, yet most of us find the idea of consuming this readily available source of proteins, and other dietary needs, to be repulsive. So much so, that eating large beetle larvae has been used as a Bushtucker Trial in the UK reality show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (see below, image from Wales Online website). The trial was designed to shock us, as well as the “victim”, but why are people repulsed by it? Firstly, it’s because the insects are alive, and wriggling, at the time they are eaten, yet we don’t hesitate to eat oysters that are alive, although they don’t wriggle, of course. Also, we are not repulsed by eating winkles, cockles and mussels, and don’t worry too much when the latter are boiled to death in wine when we make the delicious Moules Marinière.
I have eaten many insects – bee larvae, mealworms, caddisfly larvae – but they were all cooked. When I proffered them to colleagues, some tried the various delicacies, but a majority turned down the chance to try something new. We are much more squeamish than the residents of countries where insects are a regular part of the diet and the splendid little book Why Not Eat Insects? [1] describes examples, emphasising the many places where locusts and grasshoppers are eaten, usually after cooking in various ways. In the Introduction to the 1988 re-printing of the book, Dr Laurence Mound writes:
Why Not Eat Insects? is not just a fascinating Victorian book, full of humour and ideas, it is also an interesting – indeed profound – question about human behaviour. In Europe we associate insect-eating arrogantly with lesser cultures. Australian aborigines are welcome to their Bogong Moth Balls – compressed handfuls of moths swept from their resting places beneath rocks and gently baked. People around the great lakes of eastern Africa can eat their Kungu Cake – myriads of midges pressed into a patty and cooked..
If we are put off by the appearance of insects, we must
process them to make them more palatable: the Kungu Cake mentioned by Dr Mound is
an example, being a yellow-brown mass that belies its origins.
Recently, I was very impressed by an interview with Clément Ray (pictured above), the CEO of Innovafeed, that appeared in the magazine Sustainable Heroes [2], produced by Nomura Greentech, a company that is a worldwide leader in arranging finance for sustainable technologies (appropriate, as it is part of the Japanese-owned Nomura Bank and most of the insects that I have eaten have come from Japan, where the food culture is different to the one that I was brought up to enjoy). In a Q and A in the magazine, Clément had this to say when asked about human consumption of insect protein:
The EU [has] extremely favorable regulations for insect protein. It authorized the use of insect protein in aquaculture in 2017, for monogastrics (poultry and swine) in 2019 and for humans last year [2021].. ..One of our big marketing challenges is to make people more aware of the amazing potential and nutritional value of insect-based proteins for humans. To that end, we are currently developing prototypes and working on the appropriate packaging.
Present production by Innovafeed is used in animal feeds and this, of course, adds another step in the chain of human food supply. As Clément states, finding a way of marketing insect by-products to make them desirable directly to consumers is the key challenge.
The scale of production by Innovafeed is impressive, as can be seen in the videoclip above. Until I viewed this, I had little appreciation of the industrial farming of the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) - details in [3] - and reared throughout the World as an animal food. The important step, however, is the development of a product for direct human consumption, as that is more energy efficient and thus sustainable. I am grateful to Nomura Greentech for introducing me to Innovafeed, a company that is on its way to do just that.
[1] Vincent M Holt (1885) Why Not Eat Insects. Reprinted, with a new Introduction in 1988. London, British Museum (Natural History).
[3] https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Hermetia_illucens/
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