Eat Ento

When I was researching existing literature for my masters thesis on the acceptance of eating insects in the West, one thing that kept interesting me was the fact that we have rejected certain foods in the past because they have seemed disgusting or just a bit weird but have later come to accept them as a very popular or even common food.  In fact, there was a book printed as far back as 1885 entitled 'Why Not Eat Insects?' by Vincent Holt and in this book he quite rightly questioned how lobster went from being something quite repulsive due to the fact that it is a 'foul feeder' to being found on the most upmarket tables around the world!  He also recalls there being 'an equally strong objection to the pig' thought to be an unclean animal.  'What would we do without the poor pig now?' he questions.  And that was in 1885!  I'm pretty sure there are more bacon butties consumed now than there were back then.

It is true that we have deanimilised or desensitized what we eat.  We don't refer to our meat as cow or pig, it's beef or pork and we rarely see the whole form of the animal prior to eating it and not many people have witnessed the abattoir process.  Needless to say, accepting insects in their whole form is difficult as we are not used to seeing our food in this way.  Although I believe it it is not a bad thing to get to know exactly where our food comes from, how it is farmed and what the process is, I understand that we all have a different threshold when it comes to these things.
I was interested recently to learn that a friend went from being a vegetarian to eating meat after rearing her own cow.  She found the process so touching that she couldn't understand why she wouldn't want to reap the fruits of her labor.

Another example that kept popping into my head whilst doing my research was sushi.  I am sure that the majority of us thought that eating raw fish was a rather strange thing to do and possibly a major health risk.  I'm also pretty sure that we didn't expect there to be a fast food sushi shop on almost every street corner in towns and cities.  Sushi is a great example of how a food we viewed with 'disgust' was turned into a popular, upmarket cuisine.  So what was the secret?  Well for starters Sushi was introduced as a work of art rather than a foreign cuisine.  It is fascinating  to watch the artistic chefs produce these sculptures of fish and rice in an open, clean kitchen with their slick knife skills and amazing attention to detail.  Sushi is also healthy and the Japanese are known as having one of the healthiest diets in the world.  Introducing a product that is expensive also puts it in that exclusive bracket, a bracket that we all want a bit of but it's just a bit out of our reach.  But it wasn't out of reach for celebrities or rich, trendy foodies who all want a low fat, high protein, exclusively expensive cuisine to keep their size zero figures.  As soon as sushi became more popular it was made more available and there you have it!  The success story of sushi in a nutshell.

So that brings me to Eat Ento!  Eat Ento is a food start up company based in London run by four friends who met at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London studying Innovation Design Engineering.  They started a project to look at a creative approach to sustainable systems for food and food security and the outcome is really great.  You may have even seen them at various festivals and markets around the country in the past year or two.  Their mission is to change people's preconceptions about insects and to do this they are being creative with their product and design and are creating a stylish experience for consumers.  To hear about their innovative design and their future plans, check out this video:

Not only have they got a great product, representing sushi in it's cool art form and in its easy to grab Ento boxes complete with chopsticks but they are tackling our preconceptions with these healthy and intriguing cubes.  But what is really interesting about Eat Ento is their business plan.  They have recognised that this product needs to be accessible and easy to prepare so that people feel happy to try it AND they are looking to the future and planning to launch insect farming in the UK.  Eat Ento have also trialed a pop up shop in London which featured a wider variety on the menu.... with great success.  It might not be long before insect on supermarket shelves is as normal as a packet of bacon.... but without the guilt!

Eat Ento Caterpillar Cubes

Eat Ento Caterpillar Cubes

Protein Supplements for the Adventurous

Hopefully this puts another interesting spin on edible insects for you!  Just in case you weren't already convinced!

One of my blog posts mentions the nutritional value of insects and explores the difference between some of our current proteins sources and available insects, for example crickets and mealworms.  It can't be denied that they are healthy and provide us with a great source of protein as well as providing us with essential vitamins, minerals and fatty acids.

 Another product that is talked about a lot at the moment is cricket flour.  As a really high protein product, cricket flour can be added to cakes or cookies to provide an extra hit of protein in your diet.  Don't be mislead here as the cakes and cookies aren't going to suddenly become good for you, despite you wishing that was the good news.  But if you're going to eat them, you may as well get some goodness in the process.

There is an important audience who would really benefit from insect protein supplements and that's athletes and bodybuilders!  There are a lot of fitness fanatics out there who pay attention to their diet, you might drink protein shakes or need to build up a lot of protein before an event.

Courtesy of Joel Butkowski

This article by  Daniella Martin otherwise known as Girl Meets Bug is about why insects should feature in protein shakes, following a talk she did at the Society of Sports and Nutrition in Las Vegas.

Martin reminds us of the nutritional value of insects, particularly due to the fact that they are eaten whole and therefore we benefit from things such as calcium due to the digestion of the exoskeleton.

Martin's experience revealed a very enthusiastic audience, claiming that extreme athletes and body builders are keen to try new high protein food trends if it means optimizing performance.  Could this be the bridge to entomophaghy in the West?

It isn't just extreme athletes who will benefit.  Trekkers, rock climbers, mountaineers, anybody who needs healthy, protein rich food on the go.  There is an Icelandic company called Crowbar who started making noises back in September 2014 but their product list seems to be a work in progress.  Definitely one to watch!  There are a couple of great companies in the US and Canada too called Exo and Chapul.  It makes perfect sense, especially for those who are squeamish about eating insects in their whole form and these protein bars look really tasty.  It is worth reminding you that we all eat insects in our food already.  The Food Standards Agency gives an allowance for unavoidable insect fragments in the food we eat so why not add a little more and make it worth while.

As a thru trekker, I needed a lightweight, high protein diet for a 4 months trek and insects would have been perfect.  Bug Grub have packets of mixed insects with various different flavours that would keep a backpack light and make a nice change from nuts and seeds.  However, this company also seem to be a work in progress with lots of products awaiting images and showing as sold out.   However, it is a UK based company which is very encouraging.  Keep an eye on their website as things progress. Although I do have to add that they appear to currently source their products from Asia.  This may not be sustainable but it is supporting poorer economies so I'll leave that choice up to you!

Enjoy checking out these really exciting products!

Eat Grub

If you haven't already checked out Eat Grub then you really should.  Talk about leading the way in Entomophagy! 

These two friends were inspired into the world of edible insects for very different reasons.  A combination of their media, marketing and charity backgrounds seems to have been a winning combination!  They understand that importance of sustainability and nutrition but they are also committed to making food tasty.  

The insects are currently all sourced from a farm in The Netherlands (although Eat Grub will be starting their own farm very soon - watch this space!). 

The products available include mealworms, crickets, grasshoppers,  buffalo worms and for the sweet toothed out there, there is some milk or dark chocolate fudge made with crickets.  The fudge is made here in the UK!  They even do a starter pack where you can have one of each of the four insect packets (minus the fudge) and save 10%.  This is a great way to try them all, experiment with some cooking!  The packets are quite informative about the flavour which is great when you are just starting up!  

Unfortunately, they may seem a bit expensive to some but that is the same with any product that is new on the market and prices include shipping from The Netherlands.  However, there are exciting new murmurs coming out of Bristol and other little corners of the UK about various insect farms which I will be sharing with you very soon.  If you want the prices to come down then the best thing is to buy lots and support the market!  



I mentioned earlier that Eat Grub are also keen to make the sustainable and nutritious food we eat even tastier and for that, they've only gone and got their own Chef!  Their website contains some amazingly useful information from the beginners guide to roasting insects to a recipe for curried tempura grasshoppers with sweet chilli sauce.   I have to admit to being a bit lazy with my recipe as I was simply using up the things in my fridge.  I fried up half an onion, added some kale and some of Jamie Oliver's Super Tomato and Olive Quinoa that I had started the night before and added the smallest amount of pesto and a squeeze of lemon. 




 I then gently fried some crickets in lemon juice separately so as not to hide the really lovely nutty shrimp flavour and voila!  It was REALLY tasty and I was pleasantly surprised out how flavorsome the crickets are.  

And just in case you think i'm being biased, you should check out their blog.  They opened their own pop up restaurant in March last year and it was a crazy success with positive reviews all over the media.  For those of you who still think this is a strange fad, think again!  It won't be long before we are all eating insects as a normal part of our diets so it's time to be brave, order a packet of crickets and get experimenting.  Let's face it, Eat Grub provide you with all you need, the ingredients, the recipe, the information and the inspiration!

Just when you thought Eat Grub couldn't get any cooler, they also support the charity Border Consortium, to help Burmese refugees make a living from cricket farms.  I'd be keen to know how you get on so please let me know.

Nutritional Benefits of Insects

Graphic by Anna Daugherty via www.multimedianewsroom.us/

Talking about nutritional facts without completely bamboozling you is tricky as there are many different facts, figures and considerations when looking at the nutritional benefits of insects, but hopefully there is something below that is new to you!

Insects also known as mini livestock or land shrimps (as some are members of the Arthropod family along with Crustaceans) have highly variable nutritional value due to the wide variety of species as well as the metamorphic* stages of insects.  Other factors contributing to the  varying nutritional value of insects is, like many other food, how they are prepared, cooked or processed (for example insects are highest in protein when in dried form) and what the insect has been fed on (whether it be grain or organic waste).  Therefore many nutritional facts and figures you see may vary for this reason.  

There are approximately 1900 species of insects currently being consumed throughout the globe, however, this nutritional overview will concentrate on species most accessible in the West due to ease of farming, familiarity and origin.  Insects for human consumption are currently being farmed in the Netherlands and these include mealworms, crickets, grasshoppers and buffalo worms.

The main nutritional benefits of insects are dietary energy, proteins, fatty acids, fibres, minerals and vitamins.  

Proteins
As  I'm sure you know, Proteins are essential nutrients for body growth and maintenance.  The table below comes from the Food and Agriculture Organisation report on the nutrition of edible insects and shows the comparison of protein per 100g with other meat and fish.  The chart shows that grasshoppers have a very similar protein content to fish and beef.

To make the comparison even easier to see, ediblebugfarm.com have produced this chart and I think you'll agree that crickets, grasshoppers and mealworms are very comparable to beef. 



Vitamins
Finke (2013) carried out studies, focusing on insects used to feed insectivores, also comparing the nutritional content such as protein, fat, dietary energy and vitamins of certain insects with other food sources and this is shown in the table below.  (Thiamin = vitamin B1 / Riboflavin = vitamin B2).  

As shown above Vitamin B1 and Vitamin B2 are two vitamins Finke has assessed and it is worth noting that these insects have been fasted and frozen rather than dried.  The chart shows the house fly to be very high in vitamin B1 and B2.  How many of you would be keen to sprinkle a few flies on your soup?

Vitamin B1 Comparison
Dried:  0.04 to 1.13 mg per 100g
Frozen:  0.1 to 0.4 mg per 100g 

Many other Vitamins Bs are present in these insects although Vitamin B12 (in food of animal origin) is found in mealworm larvae and house crickets but this is low in many other species.  

Many edible insects are an excellent source of iron have equal or higher contents of iron than beef.  The Food and Agriculture Organisation have the following figures for you to sink your teeth into!  (sorry!)  Other minerals include Zinc, calcium and Magnesium.

Iron Content of dry weight
Beef  6 mg per 100 g
Mopane Capterpillar 31–77 mg per 100 g

ediblebugfarm.com have also produced this wonderful chart to show you exactly how much goodness can be found in these tasty little fellas.




Fats
The good fats!  Edible insects are a considerable source of fat and their oils are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids and essential linoleic and α-linolenic acids.  Many insects also contain omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and the FAO have stated that insects could play an important role in by supplying these essential fatty acids.

I think you'll agree that from a nutritional glance that those insects that are available to us stand up pretty well against beef.  They are full of the good stuff and have less of the bad.  Will they become the next health food?
Well, they kind of already have!  Eat Grub  are just one of the companies that are making these accessible to people in the UK and Eat Grub have started selling there goodies to Planet Organic.  I will be posting about their products on the blog post very soon!

Although this is a brief overview of a complex subject, I hope you've found some useful information.  Why eat cheap meat that is not healthy when you can eat a mini herd of micro livestock?!

Further details about nutritional content can be found in the FAO report entitled 'Nutritional Value of Edible Insects for Human Consumption' on the 'References' page.

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* Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation.

Finke, Mark D. "Complete nutrient content of four species of feeder insects."Zoo biology 32.1 (2013): 27-36.