Can the Dutch Get the World to Eat Bugs?

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/09/bug-nuggets/8599/

by sasvari • 15 years ago

82 90 15 years ago

noelwelsh• 15 years ago

Interesting. I wonder how bugs stack up for heme-iron and the other nutrients (aside from protein) that one gets from red meat. It's diversity of nutrients, and the body's efficiency at absorbing them, that for me make the strongest case for an omnivorous diet. It's the environmental cost of raising animal protein that for me is the strongest argument for vegetarianism.

stcredzero2• 15 years ago

Diversity is often overlooked when people think about diet. The longest lived populations also tend to have preserved a tremendous amount of diversity in their diet. Folks living in the hills of Sicily can sometimes incorporate material from several dozen different kinds of plants in a single meal. In contrast, it's not unusual for a North American to make a meal with corn, peas, potatoes, and some form of meat. That's between one or two orders of magnitude less diversity.

I've tried purposely maximizing dietary diversity, and it seems to make a difference for me.

xefer• 15 years ago

ristretto• 15 years ago

What happened to that project that would develop meat in vitro?

bromley• 15 years ago

Here's a fairly recent article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=inside-the-...

I'm a lot more enthused by the thought of petri-dish-grown steak than mealworm.

mhb• 15 years ago

They're still working on it. Here's the first page of a New Yorker article:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_...

terhechte2• 15 years ago

I'd try it right away. I dig the idea and I wouldn't mind at all moving away from having to eat cattle.

But what I didn't from the article get was, how is eating insects considered in line with the vegatarian mindset? Insects are living things, too, no?

robin_reala• 15 years ago

Yeah, I didn’t get that bit. But then I don’t get why some vegetarians eat fish either.

kristofferR2• 15 years ago

Well, plants are living things too ;)

There are a couple of reasons why some vegetarions (pescetarians) eat fish and not other meat. The main one is health, since it is really difficult to get a healthy and varied diet, with enough protein and fat, through eating just plants. A lot of people also don't believe that fish suffers as much as other animals.

Alex3917• 15 years ago

I've had locusts. They're pretty good, especially panfried, but unfortunately people seem to be having trouble importing them into the US:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_fran...

I don't think they can ever completely replace beef or pork, but the article was pretty dead on when they described them as something crunchy that could be added to fried rice or whatever.

hesselink2• 15 years ago

> I wouldn't mind at all moving away from having to eat cattle.

Who's forcing you to eat cattle?

terhechte2• 15 years ago

It's a matter of ease and usability. Go to any normal restaurant and the set of non-meat (read, tofu) is rather limited (read, none). Of course, I cook myself and I'm selective that I don't eat too much meat. But that's additional work. It would be great if non meat would be a more common part of the food industry. To make it easier to find / eat it. (Even the salad offerings are terrible, most of the time. The Mediterranean areas are pretty good at that, though).

Ygor• 15 years ago

Depends on the definition of the term vegetarian. You can go with the "no meat, but fish and bugs allowed" definiton?

I wonder why do we, as humans, consider eating bugs strange, and why haven't they evolved as a regular part of the modern human diet? Is it only for historical reasons, social, or is it something physical or biological?

kristofferR2• 15 years ago

"Humans" doesn't consider eating bugs strange, just us westerners do. The only reason for it is cultural.

Eating bugs is very common around most of the world actually:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy

microtonal• 15 years ago

Well, I guess it depends on what particular mindset. I do not eat meat, because I think that most animals that are commonly eaten are sentient, and I believe intentionally killing sentient animals is wrong.

The question of course is, what animals are sentient. I don't know. But I find it plausible that, say worms, are not really sentient. And from that perspective it's pretty ok to eat worms. Since I do not know where to draw the line, I play safe and avoid meat, but others would choose differently.

Some of my friends are also vegetarians, not because they think killing animals is wrong, but because they believe animal farming has a negative impact on the environment. If insect farming does not have the same impact, it could be a reason for them to consider eating insects.

randoom• 15 years ago

I don't want to attack you or anything, just want to point out that no living thing wants to die. There is evidence that even plants have some form of sensation [1]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/science/15food.html?_r=2

ck2• 15 years ago

We already eat bugs.

You should see what's allowed to get into the ingredients by the FDA in food processing plants.

onemoreact• 15 years ago

That's probably because it's heathly. People in rice-eating regions, for example, typically ingest significant numbers of rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae) larvae, and this has been suggested as an important source of vitamins.[37] ...

3.1.2 Wheat flour shall be free from abnormal flavours, odours, and living insects. 3.1.3 Wheat flour shall be free from filth (impurities of animal origin, including dead insects) in amounts which may represent a hazard to human health.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's The Food Defect Action Levels booklet.[39] Contamination on the average of 150 or more insect fragments per 100 grams of wheat flour, or below poses no health hazard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy

Someone• 15 years ago

That is contamination, but there also are additives where insects are added on purpose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal is used to color lots of food red.

btilly• 15 years ago

It is not always healthy.

For instance it is suspected that the prevalence of peanut allergies is connected to the fact that stored peanuts usually have cockroach infestations. The FDA limit on acceptable levels are 30 insect parts per 100 grams. (See http://www.fda.gov/food/guidancecomplianceregulatoryinformat... for verification.)

davedx• 15 years ago

Wageningen, that's down the road from where I live! I wonder if I could get a free sample...

amalag3• 15 years ago

So disgusting. There are millions of vegeterian options available. But as usual, get science involved and people make it more complicated.

JoeAltmaier2• 15 years ago

I'm thinking vegetarian options are not necessarily more eco-friendly than this solution, which is 10-100 times more efficient than pigs. Factory-grown bugs take little room. The corn around here (I'm in Iowa) take up 96% of the land surface of the state.

Organic vegetables take up - more ecosystem. More passes thru the field to baby them, more loss to insects etc so less yield. And they are labor-intensive so load them with the cost of raising the humans that tend them. Humans are Really eco-unfriendly, especially when used as laborers.

cdcarter• 15 years ago

How much of that corn grown is for human consumption, and how much becomes cattle feed?

amalag3• 15 years ago

Yeah humans as laborers in fields, how inhumane, we need to get them free so they can work in factories.

amalag3• 15 years ago

I should have said get "scientists" involved and they make it more complicated. As usual they don't know what they are talking about. This earth can support 10x the current population with a vegeterian agrarian lifestyle. Our current system is exploitative and selfish. As Gandhi said, there is enough for everyone's need, not everyone's greed.

cageface2• 15 years ago

Over here in Asia people have been eating all kinds of bugs for years. A bowl of beetles with chili powder is a favorite bar snack in Thailand.

jamesbritt• 15 years ago

Please tell me the beetles are already dead before being served.

cageface2• 15 years ago

Definitely. Generally fried and liberally seasoned. I haven't had the courage to try one myself yet.

stuff4ben• 15 years ago

Why is it I have no problems eating shrimp or lobster, but the thought of insects disgusts me? Shrimp and lobster are crustaceans which are arthropods just like insects.

ori_b• 15 years ago

Culture.

landhar• 15 years ago

Indeed, that's the thought that got me to rationalize my disgust for tasting insects when I was living in Thailand. If I had no problem trying the spicy salad with live shrimps why should I think twice about eating the grilled grasshopers ?

You can even extend this reasoning to most delicacies of the sea, clams and oysters don't look any better.

StavrosK• 15 years ago

Thank you, I tell everyone how disgusting shrimp and lobster are (they're essentially sea cockroaches!) but they don't seem to mind.

seanalltogether• 15 years ago

Because one provide a large continuous chunk of meat, and the other doesn't? Also are insects gutted or do you end up eating their entire intestinal track?

raldi2• 15 years ago

Clams, oysters, and mussels aren't gutted.

sliverstorm5• 15 years ago

Yeah, I think if we were used to having various animals whole on the table (even if we didn't eat certain parts) it would be easier to face a cricket on your plate.

I remember when I was little, I enjoyed fish- but my family once visited a fairly authentic Chinese restaurant, and ordered fish which came with the head and tail attached... I had such a hard time eating any with those empty eye-sockets staring at me.

djackson2• 15 years ago

Don't you end up eating the digestive system of the bug along with the rest of it? The sticking point for me is not that the animal is a bug, but that I am eating its waste. Never having eaten bugs, I'm not sure how exactly this works out.

When eating shrimp and lobster, you are typically eating the processed muscle mass (and shell, if you are into that), rather than the whole animal in one bite.

icyhandofcrap• 15 years ago

Typically wild insects meant for food are allowed to eat flour or corn meal for a couple of days in order to flush their digestive systems of whatever they may have been eating before. This isn't as big of an issue for farmed insects.

tokenadult• 15 years ago

I'm sure it's entirely cultural (I've lived in two very distinct cuisine cultures) and thus entirely irrational, but I like to eat living things from saltwater much better than things from fresh water. Crustaceans tend to be oceanic, while insects are terrestrial. That difference makes some difference in my thinking about them.

jules• 15 years ago

> Crickets, for example, convert feed to body mass about twice as efficiently as pigs and five times as efficiently as cattle.

So, with about the same efficiency as chicken. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

lobo_tuerto• 15 years ago

Well, Mexico is a place where you can find places to eat insects fairly easily. Like "chapulines" (grasshopers)from Oaxaca. They are very crunchy and tasty. ;)

The mexicas (from prehispanic era) used to have a variety of insects in their menu.

Here you can find a table with a list of some of the species currently included in people's diet: http://entomologia.net/idolina.htm

It's in Spanish, but they have the scientific order and family name.

patio115• 15 years ago

Pass the word: rich, cultured people eat lovely healthy organic DUTCH_HERE. This script has gotten people to eat cooked snails, raw fish, and various microbial infection byproducts before.

They're only "bugs" if you're incompetent at marketing.

phren0logy• 15 years ago

Perhaps "land shrimp"? Seriously, I agree that putting the word "bugs" in the name of the products does not bode well for attracting any but the adventurous and novelty-seeking Americans/Europeans.

patio115• 15 years ago

Even worse, they're describing it as chicken nugget replacements: i.e. for those people who are too poor to buy McNuggets now you can get fat on BugNuggets. I'd have difficulty coming up with a less appealing narrative for food if I tried.

Bootvis• 15 years ago

I don't think 'insekten' would work and in the end people will find out. Why not try to put a positive spin on bugs? This will cost time but any other way will too.

stcredzero2• 15 years ago

It should be relatively easy to both engineer completely controlled "farms" for growing insects and to selectively breed variants that are more suitable for food. We should be able to produce a creature that would be a great deal more palatable to the western palate as well as easier to process.

Have you ever seen a wild strawberry or a wild carrot? Many examples of the former are little mean things whose entire surface is seed, and the latter can have the consistency of wood. (Sometimes fully domesticated carrots can have woody parts in the center.)

In general, the domesticated versions of plants are an order of magnitude tastier than their wild ancestors, and a great deal of adaptation can be managed with animals as well. Insects, with their small size and short lifespans, should be even easier to domesticate, once we set our minds to it.

icegreentea• 15 years ago

While true, it's not -too- necessary. There's a pretty good set of insects that are already 'palpable to the western palate'. Grasshoppers/crickets when stir fried pretty much tastes like crunchy chicken (at least that's my 5 year old memory of it).

Also, it's pretty clear that the 'western palate' is super open to change from social pressures. You guys seem to love raw fish now.

sliverstorm5• 15 years ago

sashimi does have the upside of still being fish, which westerners are used to.

rmc• 15 years ago

We should be able to produce a creature that would be a great deal more palatable to the western palate as well as easier to process.

The things about bugs that make them unpalatable to Western palates have very little to do with the physical aspects and food. It's all an image problem,.

felxh• 15 years ago

I'm curious to see how many people turn out to be allergic to insects. Again drawing the analogy to shellfish which are among the most common food allergens. This is not to say that eating insects is a bad idea in general, though.

raldi2• 15 years ago

A piece of advice I learned in the publishing industry: When a headline ends in a question mark, and the question can be answered either "yes" or "no", it's never yes.

nkurz• 15 years ago

It's interesting to note that this is not a new concept. I've long been enamored of Vincent Holt's 1885 "Why Not Eat Insects". It the work of a very earnest Victorian gentleman trying to figure out how best to deal with the protein needs of "the poor", leading to the conclusion that the upper class must lead the way by changing their attitude toward the consumption of insects:

  It is hard, very hard, to overcome the feelings that have 
  been instilled into us from our youth upwards; but still I 
  foresee the day when the slug will be as popular in 
  England as its luscious namesake the Trepang, or sea-slug, 
  is in China, and a dish of grasshoppers fried in butter as 
  much relished by the English peasant as a similarly 
  treated dish of locusts is by an Arab or Hottentot. There 
  are many reasons why this is to be hoped for. Firstly, 
  philosophy bids us neglect no wholesome source of food. 
  Secondly, what a pleasant change from the labourer's 
  unvarying meal of bread, lard, and bacon, or bread and 
  lard without bacon, or bread without lard or bacon, would 
  be a good dish of fried cockchafers or grasshoppers. "How 
  the poor live!" Badly, I know; but they neglect wholesome 
  foods, from a foolish prejudice which it should be the 
  task of their betters, by their example, to overcome.

Full text (with many recipes) online here: http://bugsandbeasts.com/whynoteatinsects/

sliverstorm5• 15 years ago

The only argument that matters to me:

10 kilograms of feed will generate just 1kg of beef, 3kg of pork, and 5kg of chicken. It generates 9kg of locusts.

And that is why we should be eating insects, end of story.

WiseWeasel• 15 years ago

Note that it also yields 10 kg of feed, which sounds more appealing to me than locusts. Unless these locust nuggets turn out to be the best tasting thing ever, I think I'll have my feed with a side of chicken, and leave the locusts to the more adventurous.

adnam• 15 years ago

Did the dutch get the world to eat Pannekoeke, Bitterballen, Haring or Uitsmijtern? Sadly not.

zavulon• 15 years ago

Why did I click on this? I completely lost my appetite when reading this and some of the comments.

Darmani• 15 years ago

A few weeks ago, feeling adventurous, a few coworkers and I journeyed to midtown New York to try the grasshopper tacos at a Mexican restaurant.

When mine arrived, I fearfully picked up a grasshopper and brought it to my tongue...

...and had to restrain myself from gobbling the rest up by the fistful.

In less than a second, my opinion of grasshoppers had gone from "creepy" to "tasty." I expect most others won't be much harder to convince.

Joakal• 15 years ago

Lobster were once seen as cockroaches, now the rich want them. So, anything's possible with enough marketing.

Can the Dutch Get the World to Eat Bugs?

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