You better start getting used to there being a fly in your soup, an ant in your ice cream, and a worm in your fruit salad. One day you least expect it, you’ll see a grasshopper or a cricket on the wall, and you’ll start licking like an iguana, before pronouncing like Pumbaa in The lion king: “Slimy, but tasty.” Read in a haute cuisine menu, they don’t sound so bad either: pink tomato tartare, burrata and crispy grasshopper vinaigrette; wild sea bass at low temperature with white butter of crickets and green asparagus; ganache 70% chocolate with mealworm praline and vanilla ice cream.
It is no longer an eccentric whim or a cultural imposition: insects have entered the European food debate through the door of science, legislation and, above all, sustainability. While in markets in Bangkok or Mexico City they have been part of the daily diet for centuries, in Europe their arrival is analyzed with a legal magnifying glass and cultural caution. The question is no longer whether they can be eaten, but how, and who is going to be the first to integrate them into the recipes of a continent that has historically viewed them with suspicion, if not disgust.while we gladly put viscosities such as oysters, snails, barnacles and spider crab viscera into our mouths with pleasure and at the stroke of our wallet.
In Europe, the growing interest in insects responds to a global context marked by increasing population. The discussion is no longer reduced to a question of taste, it ultimately raises questions about the future of the global food system. With a world population heading to exceed 9 billion inhabitants, the search for sustainable protein sources has become a strategic challenge. “Resources are becoming less and less, there is going to be a shortage of food, and we have to start finding new protein sources,” sums up the issue. Tatiana Pintado del CampoCSIC researcher specialized in meat technology.
The phenomenon forces us to review deeply rooted cultural prejudices. What is perceived as strange today could gradually be integrated into the diet, in the same way as happened with foods that were once considered exotic or even repulsive. But why go to the most repulsive of all? International organizations such as the FAO have been pointing out for years that insects can be an efficient source of protein, with less ecological impact than intensive livestock farming. They produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, require less water and take up less space. These factors have placed insects on the radar of European researchers, food companies and regulators.
Along with vegetable proteins – such as soy or pea -, insects are presented as an intermediate option between the vegetable and the animal. Its nutritional profile includes essential amino acids, iron, calcium and group B vitamins. “And its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant capacity is being studied,” he adds. Ligia Esperanza DÃaz Prietofrom the CSIC immunonutrition research group, who has just published, along with 30 other researchers, Edible insects in the world (CSIC-Catarata) to address the phenomenon of entomophagy.
“Until recently they told you about an insect and you said: ‘Never!’ Now they are beginning to be seen, we are hearing about them…”DÃaz Prieto adventure. “It’s not that it’s going to replace a beef steak or a fish, but they are ingredients that the food industry is going to use and, as they are demanded, the production cost is going to reduce,” explains Pintado.
In Mexico grasshoppers are sold in popular markets; andn Thailand street stalls sell fried crickets and silkworms; In the Amazon, ants eat toast; and in African countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Zambia, caterpillars are a common source of protein.. It makes us repulsive for the same reason that we would not think of giving a Chinese or a Japanese a stinking Roquefort cheese, or giving someone who is not Scottish a haggis (sheep lung, heart and liver dish with oats) or a fermented herring to someone who is not Swede. Nor bloody blood sausage to a Muslim or tripe to an American or foie to an Indian… And despite reading it, and recognizing our capacity to devour aberrations, we will hardly run after a cockroach to throw it in the frying pan and prepare a delicious snack crispy, like a good Vietnamese would do.
“Resources are getting smaller, there will be food shortages and we have to start finding new protein sources”
What is certain is that If we have something left over in the world, it is insects.. They make up between 75% and 80% of all known animal species. And ecological biomass studies disseminated in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicate that arthropods – with insects as the main group – represent most of the terrestrial animal biomass, far surpassing mammals and birds.
Europe is in a transition phase: between the food tradition that rejects insects and the need to explore sustainable alternatives. Community legislation has opened the door, the industry is beginning to develop products and science supports their nutritional value. It remains to be seen whether the European consumer is willing to cross the cultural threshold and accept that, in the not too distant future, part of the protein they consume may come from crickets, worms or grasshoppers.even if you don’t see them on the plate.
Crickets, migratory locusts and worm larvae.
Unlike Asia, Africa or Latin America, where consumption has deep cultural roots, the continent is still building a specific legal framework to allow its commercialization. The key piece is Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 on novel foods, which requires scientific evaluation of any ingredient that had not been consumed significantly before 1997. The regulation establishes that each species of insect must be authorized individually, analyzing its nutritional composition, its microbiological safety and possible toxicological risks. Thanks to this procedure, the European Commission has authorized the mealworm (The Dark One), the house cricket (Achaeta domesticus), the migratory locust (The migratory locust) and the beetle larva (Alphitobius diaperinus). And not in a generic way. The authorizations specify the forms in which they can be marketed (whole, dehydrated, powder…) and the maximum consumption levels.
The most visible drive for entomophagy in Europe comes from the food industry and, specifically, the sports nutrition sector. Emerging companies have begun producing cricket or mealworm flour to integrate into energy bars, protein breads and nutritional supplements. The Belgian company Entobel, for example, raises insects on a large scale to turn them into protein. While the Spanish firm Insectum is betting, for the moment, on the curious consumer: it sells dried crickets, mealworms or protein flours in small formats ready to bite. A bag of dehydrated crickets of about 20-30 grams can be bought for five or seven euroswith a format similar to that of a nut snack.
“They are not going to replace a beef steak or a fish, but insects are ingredients that the food industry is going to use”
In the mid-16th century, during the colonization of what is now Mexico, European chroniclers were surprised by the richness and variety of indigenous food in the central highlands. In the great plazas of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, as documented in the General history of the things of New Spainby Bernardino de Sahagún, and in the True story of the conquest of New Spainby Bernal DÃaz del Castillo, not only corn, cocoa or vegetables were sold, but also insects such as grasshoppers, maguey worms and aquatic insect eggs. Their stories show how Europeans observed them with ethnographic curiosity, but at no time did they have the intention of integrating them into their eating habits.
And you don’t have to go that far. In ancient Greece and classical Rome, certain insects considered delicatessen were consumed, such as beetle larvae raised in flour. As recorded in the Natural Historyby Pliny the Elder, in some regions of Africa they ate ants and larvaealso valued for their supposed medicinal properties. And Aristotle, in his History of Animalsobserves that on certain Aegean islands bee larvae and honeyworms were consumedalthough neither one nor the other proposed adopting such customs to the traditional Mediterranean diet.
Yogurt with raspberries and worm larvae.
Later, in the Middle Ages, some European regions ate insects in times of food scarcity; which caused these foods to be associated on the continent with poverty and survival, which contributed to their stigmatization. According to researchers from Edible insects in the world, The main obstacle to its expansion as a food in Europe is not nutritional or legal, but psychological.. Sociological studies agree on the association of insects with dirt, pests and diseases. The call factor asco It is still very strong.
Acceptance increases, however, when the insects are presented in a processed form. Protein flours, enriched snacks or sports supplements generate less rejection than seeing the insect. This phenomenon had already been observed with other foods historically introduced in Europe, such as sushi or blue cheese, today fully integrated into the diet. «It is not the same to tell yourself: ‘Take a bag of crickets and eat them’ than to use insect flour for pasta and avoid gluten, or integrate them into an energy bar. Chia seeds were also a new food, and in 2012, to buy seeds you had to go to a herbalist and pay six euros per 100 grams. Today they are widely introduced, like quinoa,” explains Pintado.
The debate, ultimately, no longer revolves around whether insects can be eaten, but rather when and how they will stop being perceived as an oddity and become a basic ingredient within the complex global food ecosystem.
