#2 :: Food for thought
Intro music: "Languid Summer " by Fireproof Babies.
Jake Hello. Thank you for downloading InsectaPod Cast, a product of the Michigan State University Department of Entomology, available at www.insectapodcast.com. For this second episode we look at insects as an overlooked but nutritive part of the human diet. Who's eating them now, who might be in the future, and who could be today if they weren't so convinced bugs are gross. I'm Jake McCarthy, the next voice you'll hear is Anna Fiedler, and this is InsectaPod Cast.
Anna Gary Parson, collection manager of the A.J. Cook Arthropod research collection at Michigan State University, says insects can provide valuable fat, protein, and vitamins and minerals when meat isn’t available. In that light, it might be useful to think of insects as a unique type of vitamin supplement, or even just an unfamiliar regional dish, like ludifisk or tripe. Regardless, Gary says people eat insects for more than one reason.
Gary In areas especially where people are poor they may not be able to meat or other protein sources to supplement their diets and gathering and eating insects and other arthropods may mean the difference between starving and surviving. Other people may eat insects as an occasional delicacy or for the thrill or gross-out factor, depending on your point of view.
Anna In areas of Africa where locusts plague crops, people sometimes turn to the pest for food, Gary said. When locusts wipe out crops and growers are faced with a shortage of food, they have little option but to go back and eat the locust, an action that both provides sustenance and reduces pest populations. By drying an salting insects to preserve them, Gary said, seasonal spikes in bug populations can feed people through-out the year. What types of insects people choose to eat, he said, depends on what is available.
Gary Grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, termites, ants, caterpillars, beetle grub, these are insects that are most commonly eaten because they are often the most abundant insect at any given site, maybe very abundant and easily obtainable where these people live. They don't spend a lot of energy or effort to find things that you have to dig up or whatever so, they go with whatever's readily available and easy to get.
Anna What would happen if we began munching on Japanese beetles or tomato hornworms? Would we be at risk for food-borne illnesses? Gary says that’s not likely. Most insects are thoroughly dried, salted, cooked, or a comibination of the three before consumption. It’s the same process we undergo with ours meats and fish, and it neutralizes potential hazards in six and eight legged critters just as effectively. What little risk remains can be avoided, he says.
Gary Some insects do have chemical defenses that would make them poisonous or taste bad, so you probably shouldn't go around eating just any insect you find. It would help to know what you're eating first. And then some people who are allergic to insect bites or stings might have some problems eating insects because they're dealing with the same types of proteins and stuff and they should probably avoid it. Other than that, there's probably very little reason not to eat insects.
Anna What many of us don’t know is that we eat insects in our food every day. Much of our food contains parts of insects that cannot be removed during processing. And then there are crustaceans, close relatives to insects, which we consider a delicacy. Gary says if we enjoy lobster, there’s little reason to turn up our noses at crickets.
Gary It's also ironic that we don't eat insects because we also consume huge amounts of shrimp crab and lobsters which are really arthropods which are not much different from insects…Insects are just one group in a large group of animals called arthropods that have jointed legs and an outer exoskeleton, a hard shell-like structure. So if you crack open a lobster or a crab you're going to find the same sort of thing you'd find if you cracked open an insect.
Anna Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Gary can clearly talk a lot about eating insects, but can he do it? The answer is, yes. We asked him about his personal experience eating insects, and it was clear that it wasn’t just something he’d done on a dare.
Gary I grew up a typical american child who would never even consider eating a disgusting insect. But my fascination in insects which eventually led to my career in studying them has opened my eyes in many ways. It was with doubts that I tasted my first bugs, mostly prepared in dishes so that they were unrecognizable and not distinguishable by taste. Eventually I tried to eat the insects themselves and the few I have tried I haven't found particularly tasty myself, but not rather objectionable, either. But if I continue to keep my mind open and continue to sample insect cuisine I might find something particularly delectable that I can't live without among the many different kinds of insects that exist in the world today.
Anna Okay, that’s not resoundingly positive; how did youngsters react to trying a food that’s typically thought of as gross in the US? To find out, we went to a program Gary recently presented to a group of families involved in 4-H in the East Lansing area on eating insects. He told us that he didn’t really expect attendees to try insects, but as an audience member, I found his presentation extremely convincing. During the seminar, he created a culture that it was okay to try insects by showing images of children eating insects in other countries, such as how children from New Guinea carry a lunchbox of roasted insects wrapped in leaves. We spoke with two children who tried eating insects at this seminar. Michael was able to overlook the novelty of the experience and focus on the sugar and garlic used to prepare some of the bug dishes.
Jake what do you think about eating bugs?
Michael I thought it was kind of gross at first but they don’t really taste like anything.
Jake so you thought that actually eating the bugs would be gross, that it would taste bad?
Michael yeah
Jake is it crunchy?
Michael a little bit...it tasted kind of like a French fry.
Jake it tasted like a French fry? I noticed you ate some meal worm and then you immediately chased it with a cookie, was that to wash it down?
Michael A little but, yeah.
Anna Then we spoke with Elizabeth, who had clearly paid attention during Gary’s presentation on insects as food in other cultures and wanted to prepare herself for potential encounters during future world travels.
Jake Did you eat bugs? What did you eat?
Elizabeth I ate the cricket cookie and the meal worm.
Jakewhich was good?
Elizabeth The cookie.
Jake was the meal worm any good? What did it taste like?
Elizabeth The meal worm tasted like garlic bread and the cookie tasted just like a chocolate chip cookie.
Jake have you ever eaten a bug before
Elizabeth Yeah
Jake what kind of bug did you eat before?
Elizabeth When I was two I accidentally ate a real worm like a slimy one.
Jake accidentally?
Elizabeth Accidentally.
Elizabeth Me and my brother used to eat sand when we were little.
Jake so were you kind of scared to eat the meal worm.
Elizabeth I was kind of nervous because I didn’t know what it was going to taste like.
Jake and yet it tasted like garlic bread.
Elizabeth Yeah.
Jake Are you glad you ate it.
Elizabeth Yeah.
Jake what did you think about the presentation about all the different culture and about in different countries all the different insects they eat? It was kind of convincing because I know that I want to do something with traveling wwen I’m older and you probably don’t want to get in a situation where someone offers you a bug and you say no.
Jake why not?
Elizabeth Because sometimes in their culture it might be rude to say no.
Anna As world cultures connect, will citizens of the US find themselves eating insects more frequently? Gary suggests that as human populations become denser, insects may grow to be an important food source again in developed countries: they’re a nutritious resource that isn’t commonly tapped into- yet. And while it might be tough to imagine ourselves munching on meal worms while downloading video from the internet, there’s certainly a willingness among many westerners to take a taste of bugs. There are stores that sell only insect foods such as mealworm and caramel-coated apples, and loads of online resources for recipes involving insects. Gary saw that kind of curiosity at his bug eating program, and it was exciting even though he recognizes we won’t be moving to an all bug diet any time soon.
Gary Actually I was quite surprised that everybody in the room actually tried to eat an insect. I and figured there would just be a couple of us demonstrating "you can eat an insect" and they would go, "oh that gross I'm not gonna do it."" But almost everybody in the room tried it and again I think they found that it wasn't objectionable. but its not like, "oh this is a fudge brownie I want more.
Jake Thanks for listening to this second episode of InsectaPod Cast, we hope you'll download us again soon. I'm Jake McCarthy, my partner is Anna Fiedler. InsectaPod Cast is a product of the Michigan State University Department of Entomology and is funded in part by the Ray and Bernice Hutson Memorial Entomology Endowment. If you'd like to know more about insects as food visit us at www.insectapodcast.com. We've got some links to pictures and videos of people eating bugs, recipes to help you cook up your own insect dishes and an account from Anna of the summer she ate cicadas.
Intro music: "Languid Summer " by Fireproof Babies.
