Biting Back!

With the arrival of summer, almost everyone I know will be heading into the great outdoors. They’ll go armed with Deep Woods Off, citronella candles and every other invention created by man to fight off insects. But maybe their plan of attack should include a frying pan and some salt and pepper instead because there’s a buzz about eating bugs - and it’s getting louder.

I first noticed it earlier this year when the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation held a conference on the benefits of eating bugs – a practice known as entomophagy. Then, during a recent cruise through the Fortnum & Mason’s food hall in London, I spotted an entire display of edible insect sweets and worm treats. Now comes news that Vij's restaurant in Vancouver, one the world’s high temples of modern Indian fushion cuisine, is experimenting with crickets.

The message emerging from the UN conference was that eating insects is good for you and good for the environment. Not only are many bugs rich in protein and some minerals, they are low in cholesterol, hormone-free and can be sustainably harvested. And, given all the hand-wringing over current food production practices, some scientists would like to see more people in the western world adding them to their diets.

The edible insect products I saw in London are the multi-legged creations of a company called Edible. Its website echoes the UN conference’s sentiments about health benefits and eco-friendliness while showcasing a sticky sweet product list that includes chocolate covered scorpions and peppermint-flavoured Antlix lollipops.

And then there’s Vikram Vij. One of the West Coast’s most well-respected and influential restaurateurs, in a recent column in the Globe and Mail, he wrote that if we can eat and enjoy the texture of foie gras, eating bugs should be a walk in the park.

“My personal philosophy has been that if you can eat beef or chicken then you should eat everything, as long as it is sustainable," said Vij.

He even has a solution for the squirm factor. He just grinds the insects up into flour to reduce the visual impact. That’s all well and nice, but what about enjoyable?

The first time I watched someone eat a worm I was in Grade 3. It was recess and the schoolyard was wet after a rainstorm. A bad boy named Jamie had peeled a thick purple-brown worm off the pavement and was chasing me and some other girls around with it. Once he had our attention, he stopped, tilted his head back and swallowed the thing whole.

I don’t remember exactly what happened after that, except there was a lot of screaming – mostly by me – before the teacher herded us back inside. How could anyone willingly eat a worm or an insect?, I asked myself then. And I continue to ask that today.

I have never, to my knowledge, voluntarily eaten bugs, although I did try a few unidentifiable dishes when I traveled through China back in the early 90s. I’m also certain I’ve swallowed a few unfortunate creatures while riding my bike. And god only knows what may have crawled into my mouth during nights spent sleeping in campgrounds.

This, of course, classifies me as one of those squeamish westerners that bug-eating proponents are targeting for a bit of re-education.

I don’t know where or when westerners went off the insect diet but lots of people around the planet have been happily eating bugs since ancient times. A study conducted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico found 1,700 species being eaten in at least 113 countries worldwide today, usually as a substitute for meat.

Mexicans enjoy fried grasshoppers sold by the pound in markets. Colombians eat ground ants spread on bread. In Papua New Guinea, moths and nutty-flavored sago grubs are popular boiled or roasted over an open fire. Australian Aborigines consider Witjutie grubs a delicacy, while Filipinos are partial to crickets. In Thailand’s night markets, locusts and beetles are served up as snacks. Indonesians simmer dragonflies in coconut milk and ginger while in Southern Africa, mopani worms are traditionally stewed with tomatoes and onions. Africans have a big appetite for termites, too. The Japanese eat fly and bee larvae sautéed in sugar and soya sauce and Japan’s late Emperor Hirohito was said to enjoy wasps with rice.

There are a few American eaters of six-legged creatures and Seattle-based naturalist David George Gordon is one of them. Gordon is, among other things, the author of the Eat a Bug Cookbook. He makes an enthusiastic case for the high nutritional value of his book’s star ingredient. A serving of cooked grasshoppers, for example, packs a whopping 60 per cent protein and only 6 per cent fat. Compare that to a similar serving of hamburger which contains only 18 per cent protein but 18 per cent fat. And insects are arthropods, like lobster and shrimp, which means that insect fat, like fish fat, is unsaturated.

Not only do they pack a nutritional punch, insects gathered through foraging or raised on farms for human consumption have significantly less environmental impact that large livestock farming. In fact, cultivating some insects requires tracts of forest be preserved instead of logged.

Another American insect gourmand of note is David Gracer, a college instructor by day and Bugs for Dinner blogger by night. Gracer maintains that if cows and pigs are the food world’s SUVs, then bugs are bicycles.

I have to admit the case for munching bugs is compelling but it is difficult to imagine North American farmers raising ants as livestock or eating Edible's array of creepy crawly confections as anything more than a novelty item. And, despite Vikram Vij’s newfound enthusiasm for insects, it remains to be seen whether his spicy parantha with ground crickets will become a popular menu item.

And then there’s the price. At around $25 CAD for a small bag of Edible's sun-dried mopani worms, not many people can afford to make these a regular part of their diet. Although it occurs to me that if local insects become a staple, Canadians will never starve – at least if blackflies are on the menu

All this talk of edible insects leaves me pondering some interesting questions. If this trend takes off in North America, will all those bloodthirsty swarms of bugs that plague us every summer start to make a beeline in the other direction when they see humans coming? Will Deep Woods Off stock plummet?

It’s going to take some persuading before I’ll be chowing down on a big bowl of bugs any time soon, but if the mosquitoes get really bad this year, I may just change my mind and decide to bite back!