Grubs Worm Their Way onto Restaurant Menus

Grasshoppers, caterpillars and grubs are high in protein and minerals and could be an important food source during droughts and other emergencies, according to scientists.

 

"I definitely think they can assist," said German biologist VB Meyer-Rochow, who regularly eats insects and wore a T-shirt with a Harlequin longhorn beetle as motif to a UN-sponsored conference this month on promoting bugs as a food source.

 

A Thai worker prepares grubs to cook in the kitchen of the Insects Inter restaurant in Bangkok. Insects will be on the menu on Tuesday at a UN meeting in Thailand, where experts are considering the dietary value of bugs and ways to farm the creatures which are delicacies in some countries. (Photo: AFP)

Three dozen scientists from 15 countries gathered in this northern Thailand city, home to several dozen restaurants serving insects and other bugs. Some of their proposals were more down to earth than others.

 

A Japanese scientist proposed bug farms on spacecraft to feed astronauts. Australian, Dutch and American researchers said more restaurants in their countries are serving insects on their menus.

 

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates 1,400 species of insects and worms are eaten in almost 90 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Researchers at the conference detailed how crickets and silk worms are eaten in Thailand, grubs and grasshoppers in Africa and ants in South America.

 

"In certain places with certain cultures with a certain level of acceptance, then insects can very well be seen as part of the solution" to hunger, said Patrick Durst, a Bangkok-based senior forestry officer at the FAO.

 

The challenge, experts said, is organizing unregulated, small bug food operations in many countries so they can supplement the food that aid agencies provide. The infrastructure to raise, transport and market bugs is almost nonexistent in most countries.

Prof Arnold van Huis, a tropical entomologist known as "Mr Edible Insect" in his native Netherlands, blamed a Western bias against eating insects for the failure of aid agencies to incorporate bugs into their mix.

 

"They are completely biased," van Huis said. "They really have to change. I would urge other donor organizations to take a different attitude toward this. It's excellent food. It can be sustainable with precautions."

 

There are questions about the safety of eating bugs and potential dangers from over-harvesting them, said Durst, who became interested in the practice known scientifically as entomophagy during his years working in Bangkok, where crickets and bamboo worms are sold as food by street vendors.