It would have been more than a decade ago that two people who had been doing missionary work stopped in the office and I was assigned the interview.
Whenever one interviews someone about something he or she is passionate about, it is generally a smooth undertaking, with a good story likely.
But as we came to the end of the interview, they offered me a traditional snack from where they had been doing their work. It was a surprise when out came a tub of dried crickets, though they were seasoned with a barbecue flavour.
I was game, and while I noted that the likelihood of the little bugs becoming an Old Dutch treat was slim, they were not the worst things I had eaten. After all, there are brussels sprouts lurking out there.
The idea of eating bugs is pretty well unknown in Canada if you don’t count shrimp and lobster, which are essentially bottom-feeding ocean bugs.
That said, insects are eaten by many cultures, in particular indigenous populations in many regions of the world.
I recall at the time doing some investigation into bug eating, and crickets were generally pointed to as the most obvious critter to add to a menu.
There are several reasons which include crickets being gram-for-gram one of the most efficient protein creators on the planet.
“By dry weight, a single cricket ranges between 65 per cent and 70 per cent pure protein. “In contrast, beef is between 17 per cent and 40 per cent protein, with the rest being primarily fat content. But what about the quality of the protein you ask? Interestingly enough, cricket protein is a form of animal protein, which means it registers as a ‘complete’ source of protein. What this means is that it contains all the essential branched-chain amino acids (BCAA’s) that the human body needs for muscle development,” notes Cricket Flours. Granted, the Cricket Flours website promotes the idea of eating bugs, but the information found there is certainly interesting.
What brought all this back to mind was a recent Western Producer article on Jarrod Goldin, who formed Entomo Farms with his two brothers, Darren and Ryan, in 2014. They grow crickets, mealworms and other worms that are dehydrated and ground into powder that is sold to food companies to make human and pet food.
The initial product made with the insect powder was energy bars that are sold in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
In the article Goldin notes the business started in large part to a 2013 white paper put out by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations titled Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security, which basically contemplated that without insects entering the food and feed chain, the world will not be able to sustain feeding everyone.
The idea of eating bugs won’t catch on anytime soon here I am sure, but it does raise interesting thoughts toward our food future.
