European Commission Offers $4.3 Million Prize To Encourage People To Eat Insects

This was the summer of insects in the food world. Dana Goodyear wrote a piece on entomophagy -- insect eating -- in the New Yorker, Daniella Martin wrote one here on HuffPost Food and Angelina Jolie said her children eat crickets "like Doritos." So far, the activity has been mostly rhetorical -- people have been giving lip service to the ecological benefits of eating insects, but not that many people have actually been converted.

But now, the European Commission is putting money where all these foodie mouths are. It is offering a massive £2.65 million ($4.32 million) prize to the group that comes up with the best idea for developing insects as a popular food. The Commission is counting on cattle and other large animals being an increasingly untenable source of protein in decades to come, and hopes that some research group will be able to devise ways to convince people to eat insects despite the inherent "yuck" value.

The EC is also helping support a project by the UK Food Standards agency to investigate the nutritional value of insects. Insect meat is much lower in fat, and higher in calcium, than beef or pork. But the UK study is looking especially hard at any risks presented by eating insects.

If you want to taste insects yourself before they become the default meat for recipes of the future, you have a many options. You can go to Oaxaca, Mexico where crickets and grasshoppers have long been a staple on taco menus. You can visit a state fare, where maggot sandwiches are an up-and-coming delicacy. Or you can stop buy the grocery store and pick up a package of Nathan's frankfurters -- a recent lawsuit alleges that insects are an increasingly standard ingredient in hot dogs.

And if you want to see how culinary insects are raised, check out this video of a farm in Laos.

Comments

[Brent Rossen]

07:18 AM on 09/09/2011

I only eat cute animals.

[SouthStJo]

04:45 AM on 09/09/2011

Fried mealworms are the way to go.
Pick some up at a bait shop.
Use olive oil, garlic, and salt. Eat as a snack or mix with fried rice.
High protein, crunchy, and none of the irritation you can get from grasshoppers.

[grainysmith]

07:01 PM on 09/08/2011

Growing meal worms seems like a good way to get a sustainable source of protein. If they are mashed the texture may be just like tofu.

[ckmotorka]

05:12 PM on 09/08/2011

The insects I have (knowingly) eaten have all been tasty. But they're very expensive. I'd be willing to get on the bandwagon if the ticket to ride wasn't so expensive.

[TheAlchemyst]

02:58 PM on 09/08/2011

Scorpion-infused vodka is pretty nice (spicy, a little woody)

[Ken Scherer]

10:20 PM on 09/07/2011

My property is only a tenth of an acre but I've shown my kids that they can eat the dandelions, onions, roses, and black berries that all grow wild along our back yard fence. We have plenty of eatable insects but I've never tried that. This article makes me want to see what assortment of bugs I can gather to freak out my wife and kids with.

[dutchgirl55]

05:12 PM on 09/10/2011

Don't you mean, you're ex-wife and kids? LOL

[Edna Crabapple]

02:25 PM on 09/07/2011

For a number of years the Jardin Botanique in Montreal used to host an insect tasting event.
We went 3 or 4 times, and I swore I would never eat bugs, but I'm adventurous and wound up trying it.
It wasn't as bad as I'd feared. There was only 1 thing that was really off-putting. Most of the bugs were small, and crunchy, sort of like eating rice krispies or popcorn.
Penn State University does something similar once a year also.
We all eat hundreds of pounds of bugs in our food every year without knowing it, what's the big deal?
And about those hot dogs- that's why I stick with Hebrew National- they answer to a higher authority... LOL

[Nic the wonder puppy]

01:32 PM on 09/07/2011

I'll do it, I'm a dog, I'll eat almost anything

[Koeiseun]

10:44 PM on 09/07/2011

LOL....my dog chases and eat flies all the time....

[robertste998]

11:44 AM on 09/07/2011

These people don't gut the bugs! That means you are eating the bug's intestine & its uncleaned contents. I sure hope the bugs you scoff down don't have even smaller parasites inside themselves. A hundred hookworm eggs would be just about the size of a grain of sand.

[Edna Crabapple]

02:34 PM on 09/07/2011

Hookworms live in the gut of mammals like dogs and cats. They are also present in soil.
From Wikipedia:
"Infection of the host is by the larvae, not the eggs. While hookworms can be ingested, the usual method of infection is through the skin; this is commonly caused by walking barefoot through areas contaminated with fecal matter."
And BTW- you've got a much better chance of getting some kind of parasite from eating sushi than you do from eating insects, because the insects are thoroughly cooked, which destroys any micro-organisms they might have.

[DaniellaMartin]

01:03 PM on 09/09/2011

Know what other animals we eat without gutting? Oysters, clams, and mussels. Yum!

[TomP100]

11:26 AM on 09/07/2011

A friend of mine went on one of those adventure tours of the Amazon. He ate a tarantula roasted over an open fire like the indigenous people there eat. Said it tasted like shrimp.

[Helen Greenfeld]

10:14 AM on 09/07/2011

with fried onions, garlic and roasted peppers? not

[Don Jermo]

09:37 AM on 09/07/2011

Just put some Nutella on the bugs, kids will gulp them down in no time

[TryToBeFlexible]

09:07 AM on 09/07/2011

I would love to try bugs. But in a real recipe, not a cricket in a lollipop. I have never been able to even find a place to order online, must less in a local market.

[Stephen Thorpe]

07:28 AM on 09/07/2011

Bugs in Nathans hot dogs? Won't be buying them.
I worry about processed food. I'm starting to not buy it either.
Talpia? Wont buy it after a documentary I saw on how it's raised. What it will eat.

[colonelsun68]

07:20 AM on 09/07/2011

For a million or so bucks, I could eat an awful lot of bugs. Anyone got ketchup?