Insect foods

If you’re squeamish don’t look at this. In a world where burgers can be grown in petrie dishes it seems another untapped “second front” in the quest for a new approach to improved western food agendas is insects. I did wonder how different a locust was from a prawn – but that’s the road to hell! This article tells us:

While the world has been fascinated by Mark Post and his team’s €250,000 attempt to make a stem cell burger at Maastricht University, there are many experts who think insects are a more likely protein source for a hungry world. In a 2011 report [pdf] the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) quoted estimates that the production of 250g of lab-grown “beef” would cost in the region of $1m. It cited reports that said even if produced on an industrial scale, it would still cost “£3,500 per tonne, approximately twice the cost of conventional unsubsidised chicken meat production in the EU”.

In contrast, Giroud and her partner Julien Foucher launched their company, Insagri, based in Coín, near Málaga, earlier this year with an investment of €24,000 (about £21,000). Initially, they intend to grind the larvae of black soldier flies into a high-protein dust and sell it as a replacement for fishmeal to fish farms on the Andalusian coast. In the long term, though, they’re more interested in raising insects for human consumption. They already have a client in the Netherlands who, from September, will sell their dried crickets and grasshoppers as a snack. Potentially more significant as a rival for both meat and lab-meat is their “protein flour” – dehydrated, ground-up insects – which can be added to everything from cereal to energy bars.

My Grandmother used to say “we all have to eat a peck of muck before we die” but frankly this article points to the ridiculous turn our endless quest for novelty foods has taken. 

This article explains: “Now food standards watchdogs across the European Union are preparing to give them safety tests. Though such dishes are being increasingly seen as the food of the future for affluent as well as poorer societies, the European commission in Brussels and agencies in members states haven’t a clue about how many citizens are now eating the foods. They are asking suppliers, retailers and natural history experts to help them establish just how far down the road Europeans are in following other nation’s dietary habits, such as cockroaches (China), witchetty grubs (Australia), locusts (many places in Africa) and agave worms (Mexico, where they accompany tortilla as well as tequila). Enthusiasts say the foods, cooked, are a dependable source of protein and don’t take up the farmland feeding livestock – or the greenhouse gases affecting climate change.”

 Makes me think of a new diversification opportunity for our maggot farms – bluebottle anyone?