Entomophagy News – Sour Cream & Onion Dung Beetles, Anyone?
A few newspaper articles published today cover different aspects of entomophagy, otherwise known as eating insects.
First, the Montreal Gazette has an article about five students at McGill University who are trying to find a way to farm insects cheaply so that they can be a viable source of food. The plan is to provide farmers in developing countries with insect-rearing kits that are specially designed to allow a wide variety of species to be harvested year round. The students would then purchase the harvested insects from the farmers, process them, and sell them to local distributors.
“In our first year, we’ll be launching in Mexico — which is home to Neza-Chalco-Itza, the world’s largest slum,” said one of the students. “We’ve already found a distribution partner there and farmers who are ready to go.”
Next, the UK’s Daily Mail reports “a leap in online orders in the UK” for insect snacks, including cans of flavored arthropod snacks such as sour cream & onion dung beetles, bacon & cheese grasshoppers, BBQ bamboo worms, nori seaweed armor tail scorpions, salted queen weaver ants, wasabi house crickets, and giant waterbug chili paste. The manufacturer of these products told the Mail that “the edible bugs gift packs have been flying off the shelves, with a remarkable number winging their way to Britain.”
Finally, the Seattle Times published an article today about the annual Bug Blast held at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, which featured insect dishes including crickets, grasshoppers, and tarantulas for visitors to try.
“They’re good, they taste like salty almonds,” said one of the children about a cricket dish.
Read more at:
– Can McGill students turn insect farming into $1 million?
– Kids get taste of their 6-legged friends at museum Bug Blast
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It’s great to see entomophagy getting increased attention. Unfortunately this team’s work is based on theft of intellectual property; they’ve taken Jakub Dzamba’s design and are calling it their own. The matter is under dispute at McGill and elsewhere, I believe.