Foods with insects are on trend course – and not without reason. gettotext.com author Hanna Gears wonders: Do we have to get used to crawlers and creepers?
Suspiciously I eye the dried grasshopper, which lies with its wings and legs in front of me. She’s about four inches long and looks like she’s looking at me with her big reddish-brown eyes. Eat insects ? Is not that something for D-Promis in the jungle camp? I grimace in disgust. As an environmentally and nutritionally conscious person, I actually belong to the target group of insect food manufacturers. But I feel like many: “I disgust myself before the consumption of insects” – this statement is completely true, answered a good third of participants in a survey of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).
Outside Europe, insect foods have long been part of everyday life
According to the Ministry of Agriculture’s Food Report, however, 31 percent of people can imagine buying insect-derived foods. For them are already the first products on the shelves. Retail chains such as Rewe, Kaufland, Edeka, Budni and dm, for example, offer the bar “Swarm Protein”. There’s also a frozen burger patty from “Bugfoundation” and noodles from “Plumento Foods” with buffalo worms.
The proportion of insects in the products is between ten and 30 percent. They are made into flour, which makes tasting easier because it does not look like creepy-crawlies. It is only since the beginning of last year that insects have been permitted as Novel Foods throughout Europe , and in countries such as Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland for quite some time. Beyond Europe, insect food has long been part of everyday life anyway – after all, there are about 2000 edible species, they are usually consumed grilled, roasted or dried. For about a third of the world’s population – including in Asia and Central and South America – it is quite normal to consume insects. There are two main reasons for mealworms, barbecues, Buffalowürmer or locusts on the plate:
Eating insects is sustainable
In developed countries huge amounts of land, water and energy are needed to produce meat. Worldwide, the population is growing, at the same time increases the hunger for meat. Edible insects could be an alternative to food security globally, according to the United Nations’ FAO, in its “Edible Insects” study.
This becomes clear when one compares the life cycle assessment of beef and crickets, as the Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg has done: to produce the same amount of meat, you need four times less food for crickets instead of cattle, 12.5 times less space, 15500 times less Water. This produces 100 times less CO 2. And while you can eat 80 percent of a cricket, a cow has only 40 percent.
Eating insects is healthy
Insects contain not only many proteins, but also vitamins and minerals such as B12, zinc and iron as well as polyunsaturated fatty acids. The nutrient content is comparable to fish. What is currently holding us is the disgust. “Eating insects is a scary idea for most of us,” writes Hanni Rützler, a food trends expert, in an essay. And adds: “Since the nutritional and ecological arguments that speak for the consumption of creepy crawlies, caterpillars and larvae, hardly help.”
I want to try for myself, whether the idea of eating a creepy-crawler, or whether it’s the taste. First, I eat the finished patty of the insect burger. He is delicious and strong as his carnal counterpart. But pure? Whole grasshoppers and worms nibble on television in the evening instead of chips? This is more a test of courage than enjoyment. Together with a friend as reinforcement, I try freeze-dried grasshoppers and mealworms – and breathe out after chewing the first mealworm. He tastes: nothing. “Like crispy air,” says my girlfriend.
The grasshopper is similar, it is just a little more intense and nutty. It will not work. Next time, I pick up the “insect cookbook” by Folke Dammann. The recipes sound like a fine selection of tapas: “crickets with honey and sesame” or “fried locusts with lime dip” about. Of course, we do not eat prawns, which are related to grasshoppers as crustaceans, and we do not eat them unseasoned and freeze-dried.
And what about animal ethics?
“Factory farming,” says Baris Özel, managing director of “Bugfoundation” who make the insect burger , “is paradise for insects.” They would also live together in nature often in a small space, for them such a pose is therefore less problematic than for mammals. The killing was also much more animal friendly, as the cold-blooded animals simply fall asleep when they are frozen.
But: who eats insects, kills animals. This can not be synonymous with euphemisms such as “entovegan” (for vegetarians who eat insects) fine talk. Consequently, the association ProVeg, which campaigns for vegetarian and vegan nutrition, rejects the eating of insects. In fact, we do not understand insects enough to say with certainty whether or not they can really feel pain.
How will the future look like? Legal regulations and hygiene standards are still missing
Also important to know: There are no standards for the breeding of crabs, there is a lack of legal regulations and independent controls: “Important are hygiene requirements for production and feeding, so that no germs can multiply and the animals are really clean,” criticized Silke Schwartau from the consumer center Hamburg.
Will the insect trend prevail in our country? Trend researcher Hanni Rützler is skeptical that the reservations are too great. Christoph Thomann from Online-Versand Zirpinsects, on the other hand, believes: “Eating insects will be normal for us within ten years at the latest.” My reservations are definitely lower after trying it out. Even though I prefer to stay with chips while snacking.