Insects for dinner

Source: thepirata.com

Dutch scientist advocates bugs as a green superfood

Dutch scientist Arnold van Huis has advocated bugs as a healthy, green, alternative food, saying it is time to break old eating habits.

Insect dishes could be the answer to the global food crisis, shrinking land and water resources and climate-changing carbon emissions, he argued.

"Children don't have a problem with eating insects," he told Reuters.

Prof van Huis gives lectures, tastings and cookery classes with a master chef who prepares Dutch-farmed bugs.

The problem for adults is psychological, he said, and "only tasting and experience can make them change their minds".

Insects are a long-established food in some parts of the world such as Mexico and Thailand.

Worm Sprinkles

The professor at Wageningen University said insects had more protein than cattle per bite, cost less to raise, consumed less water and did not have much of a carbon footprint.

To encourage bug consumption, the professor has been working with a local cookery school to produce a cookbook and suitable recipes.

Chef Henk van Gurp, who created recipes for mealworm quiche and chocolate pralines with buffalo worms, sees no reason to disguise the ingredients.

He sprinkles mealworms on top of his quiche filling and on the chocolate buffalo worms as protein.

"I try to make my food in a way that people can see what they eat," he told Reuters.

"Once international leading chefs begin preparing this food, others will follow."

'Good for the elderly'

Insects are already bred as food for birds, lizards and monkeys at the Callis family's farm near the university, and now the owners are eyeing the human market.

"It is good food, of high nutritional value and very healthy for elderly people," said Margot Callis, adding that she cannot eat insects herself because she is "allergic to them".

One person who attended a food-tasting at the university, 24-year-old IT consultant Duyugu Tatar, was less than enthusiastic about the quiche.

"The taste was not that awful but the idea of eating them horrified me," he said about Mr van Gurp's sprinkles.

"It was crispy. The taste was not like normal food. Not like meat, vegetable, or fruit. Maybe something like cornflakes.

"It took a lot of courage to eat it. I usually smash them [insects] when I see them. I am not used to eating them. I don't know if I would eat it again."

Source: BBC News 

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