I know, you must be turning up your nose and thinking: ARE YOU CRAZY?? But the rejection of the idea of associating insects and food is cultural.
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In Asian countries, such as South Korea and China, it is common to find skewers of grasshoppers and other insects in open-air restaurants and restaurants. And believe me: some are considered delicacies!
And here in Brazil, in some regions of Brazil, such as the Amazon region, it is common to eat a species of ant called Tanajura.
The sauva ant is also used in cooking, or to finish dishes – like chef Alex Atala – thanks to its citrus flavor.
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Yes, insects are ugly and sometimes look disgusting. To increase acceptance, one of the strategies is to transform the appearance into something “more common”, as envisaged by the SUStainable INsect CHAIN (SUSINCHAIN) project, which brings together institutions from several countries and is financed with resources from the European Union.
Researcher Nanna Roos, professor at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports (NEXS) at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and coordinator of projects funded by the European Union, is one of the advocates of this diet:
“There was an explosion, an excitement, when it became clear that we could produce highly nutritious food, on a large scale, without much impact on the environment. Even more so at a time when we are increasingly aware of climate change and its effects”, explains Roos, one of the greatest experts on the subject.
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Denmark is one of the pioneers in initiatives of this type: and even the Danish royal family has already shown interest in the subject: in September 2022, Prince Frederik André Henrik Christian made news when he tried a cookie made with crickets.
In practice
One of the SUSINCHAIN studies selected Copenhagen families with children aged 8 to 10 to receive, every week, a basket with food made from insects that replicate famous recipes.
“The idea is that you don’t see the insect. We have a ground beef version, for example, which is the base of a Bolognese pasta dish with crickets. We have sausages, we have bread, we have falafel”, exemplifies Roos.
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“The goal is to make insect-based food something really familiar. What is important for this project is to make insects contribute substantially, so that they stop being snacks and become a substantial portion of the diet”, says the researcher.
Food of the future?
Insects could become, in the future, an important alternative food for the diet of millions of people around the world. This is what the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) assesses.
Efforts to popularize entomophagy (technical term used to define eating insects) are not new: since 2013, the UN has been promoting the idea to combat hunger.
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Nutritional value
According to the UN, grasshoppers and crickets are a great source of good fats, and the percentage of proteins in foods made from these insects can reach up to 69% of the total.
Furthermore, these animals are rich in micronutrients such as copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium and zinc, as well as riboflavin, pantothenic acid, biotin and, in some cases, folic acid.
“In addition to being rich in proteins and good fats, studies show that edible insects have a good amount of fiber, vitamins and, mainly, minerals such as calcium, iron and zinc”, says Fabiana Fiuza Teixeira, nutritionist in the Population Health area at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein.
For these reasons, in a report published in 2013, the UN division dedicated to food considered that insects are “a highly significant food source for human populations”.
And you, are you willing to try and experiment?
(Source: Einstein Agency)
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