Would you eat bugs if it meant helping to save the planet?
I’m Anna and this is Gross Science.
Let me start off by saying that, depending on where you live, the idea of eating insects
may not gross you out at all.
According to a 2013 United Nations report, insects are included in the traditional diets
of at least 2 billion people.
That said, most Westerners, especially in northern latitudes, don’t tend to eat bugs—and
in fact, find it pretty disgusting.
So, why is that?
Well, no one knows for sure, but there are a bunch of ideas.
One is that it’s simply easier to eat bugs in the tropics, because they tend to be larger,
there’s a diversity of species available there all year round, and those bugs may have
predictable harvesting seasons.
Another idea is that traditional agriculture may have made eating insects less desirable.
Agriculture first began in the Fertile Crescent, and then spread to Europe.
And those regions already had large mammals that could be domesticated, so collecting
bugs for food may not have been as much of a priority.
And, as time went on, insects may have gone from being accepted as benign parts of the
environment to being seen as agricultural pests, and invaders in our homes.
Whatever the reason, the fact that most people in the US and Europe regard the idea of eating
bugs with disgust is mostly cultural.
After all, when you think about it, it is a bit strange that our mouths water for this
creature with an exoskeleton and pinching claws and not this one.
Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Who cares!
I still don’t wanna have bugs for dinner!”
And to that I say, “Let me lay out the case for entomophagy—the practice of eating insects.”
To begin with, insects are efficient at putting on weight.
In order to raise a cow to maturity, you need a lot of food.
But to rear the same amount of cricket meat takes 12 times less feed.
What insects eat is also more sustainable.
We need to devote a lot of agricultural land to traditional livestock—so we can grow
food for them, or so they can graze.
But many bugs can live off of waste products, like manure and compost.
That said, the risks to us of raising edible insects on organic waste are still being studied.
On top of that, livestock like cows are notorious for releasing tons of methane, which is a
potent greenhouse gas.
But very few insects produce methane at all.
Of course, none of that would matter if bugs were bad for you.
But it turns out that they can be a great source of proteins, healthy fats, and minerals,
depending on the species.
Clearly, there are lots of economic, environmental, and health reasons to eat insects—though
we’d have to figure out sustainable ways of harvesting lots of bugs if entomophagy
were to catch on more widely.
But that’s not gonna happen if people don’t like how they taste.
So, how do bugs taste?
Well, people say crickets taste nutty, scorpions taste like shrimp, and the grubs of the palm
weevil taste sweet when they’re raw or like calamari when they’re cooked.
And I can tell you that everything I ate today was pretty good, except for those grasshopper
tacos, which were really not great.
But I think that was just probably because I cooked them poorly.
I don’t blame the grasshoppers.
I’m gonna put links in the description to all the recipes I used today, and you can
try them out yourself.
I especially recommend the scorpion curry.
And if you do try bugs, let me know what you think, and how you prepared them!
Take a photo of your creations and tag me on Instagram!
I’d love to see what you cook up.
Ew.
By the way, there’s one more reason to eat insects—as pest control!
Palm Weevil grubs (the ones that taste sweet or like calamari) are becoming a big problem
in places like southern California.
My friends over at Deep Look actually made a whole video about these guys.
So head over to their channel to see how weevils could harm the iconic palm trees of Hollywood.
And if you like Gross Science, hit subscribe!
That is not delicious.