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