Welcome to Nutrition Bites. The no nonsense podcast where you get the truth about food so you can eat what you want, and be healthy. I’m your host Maggie and welcome to the series. Our food system is constantly in flux, and with a growing population, and a finite planet, sooner or later we’re going to run into some issues feeding everybody. But one potential solution is starting to make a lot of buzz. On the menu today, insects.
As someone who voluntarily read a financial literacy book as a child, I’m a stickler for studiously evaluating all of my bills. Up until recently, I've mostly scanned my weekly grocery receipt out of curiosity rather than necessity, but nowadays I’m hunting for the culprit to the outrageous costs I’m faced with. Unfortunately there is no case of imported organic pomegranates to blame, food is just hella expensive at the moment. In part due to an unpredictable supply chain, thanks to COVID and climate change, what is available for us to eat and what we can afford to eat, is constantly changing. And whenever I’m faced with this type of scenario I always think about the future of food. What are costs and options going to look like in the next 5 years or even 50? But despite the doom and gloom feel of this, one sliver of hope I hold on to is that in times like these people are pushed towards thinking, and eating, outside the box. And one of the most promising ideas for the future of food is insects. As a food category, insects are a great source of sustainable protein that have the potential to feed the world en masse, at a cheap price, and with a small environmental footprint. While it’s long been a staple in most countries, it’s about time we in the West get comfortable with beetle burritos and cricket curries. But first, let’s learn a little bit more about the six-legged snacks of the future. Time to hop on in.
Scientists estimate that over 80% of the world’s species are insects. Now I don’t want to sound like that weird bug-obsessed kid from elementary school but that is just wild! Insects are one of the most diverse groups of organisms on the planet, and humans are known to eat around 1900 different species, with crickets, beetles, carterpillers, wasps, ants and locusts being the most popular varieties. Now the main differentiator between the 2 billion people who regularly eat insects and those who keep an arsenal full of chemicals and traps to stay bug free, is geography. In colder climates, like North America and Europe, insects tend to be small in size and are only active during a short season, so historically they never really became a staple of the local diet. In tropical climates however, like across South America, Africa and Asia, insects are larger in size and tend to be available year round, which makes it easier to forage and have a regular feature in the local cuisine. Tropical climates are also more biodiverse, which means more choices for your individual preference. I mean, just think of that scene from the Lion King where Timon and Pumba show Simbal all the colourful grubs available for lunch. To this day, no cartoon food scene has looked as tasty. Lucky for me though, an insect tapas may be coming to a nearby restaurant. That’s because climate and food experts are banking on bugs.
In order to feed the predicted global population of 9 billion people in the coming decades, the UN predicts that we would need to double our food production. A scary scenario sure, but not entirely unachievable. But one of the biggest challenges of meeting that goal is upping our production of protein. Animal meat has long been humans protein of choice, but as I’ve talked about in previous episodes, the environmental damage associated with raising animals for food is enormous. Raising livestock requires huge amounts of feed, water, and land, and some animals we eat, mainly cows, naturally produce tons of damaging greenhouse gases. Eating meat is one of the most environmentally destructive habits we partake in, and we need to drastically reduce our intake or else we will destroy the planet far faster than any aliens can. But turning vegan or vegetarian is a hard sell for many people, mostly because many are stuck in the mindset that plant proteins are inferior (untrue by the way). But this is where insects come in. Insects are naturally high in protein, sometimes containing even more protein than beef, and they can be sourced in a much more eco-friendly way.
Although insects have traditionally been foraged in the wild, the future supply chain is likely to be driven by farmed insects. Take one farm here in Canada which boasts a “livestock” count of 100 million crickets - the largest “farm” (you could say) in the world. And compared to livestock farms, insects use far fewer natural resources to be raised. Harvesting 1 kg of crickets requires 13x less land, and 2000x less water than what it takes to produce 1 kilo of beef. Insects also produce far fewer greenhouse gases than livestock and have a significantly higher feed conversion rate, meaning they are really good at turning their food into nutrients. In plain speak: feed them whatever and they’ll make use of it. Insect larvae for example feed on organic waste that would normally end up in the landfill. Not only do they convert material we would have thrown away into valuable nutrients, but when we eat insects we waste less of the animal too. Unlike with livestock where we only eat certain cuts or parts, with insects you munch on the entire thing. No waste necessary.
Although more research needs to be done to determine exactly how much more sustainable insect farming en masse would be, experts agree that it’s the direction we need to be heading in. But just because it’s a more sustainable animal protein option, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthier. So what do we know about the nutrition of insects?
Well, right off the bat we can’t treat insects as a homogenous category when it comes to nutrition and health. As the most diverse class in the animal kingdom (and yes, I had to repeatedly google biological life order because I can’t remember the terms), it’s impossible to generalise the nutritional profile of insects. There’s simply too much variety. For example, nutritional differences are found between crickets and grasshoppers, within cricket species themselves, between the same cricket species raised in different habitats, and between crickets raised in the same habitats but at different life stages. All of these factors present big challenges to determining the nutritional qualities of various insects, and up until recently, very few organisations were even interested in researching this. But times are changing, and some species, particularly farmed crickets, black flies, and mealworms, are gaining interest in the research world because of their commercial potential. So here’s what we know so far.
Of the species studied, we can say that insects tend to be high in protein, low in fat, and a good source of micronutrients like Vitamin B12, iron, zinc, and calcium. Some species, like crickets and grasshoppers, also tend to be high in fibre thanks to that indigestible and crunchy exoskeleton of theirs. When compared to livestock, research on commercially available insects have shown that they are just as nutritious as beef, chicken and pork. More specifically, they tend to have similar amounts of protein and higher amounts of some minerals. But that doesn’t necessarily make them a healthier alternative. Insects are calorically dense and are naturally high in sodium and saturated fat, two nutrients we should generally be eating less of.
Considering the newness of the “insects as food” research landscape, there’s very little understanding on the health impacts of an insect-dominant diet. But examining the nutritional profiles we do know of, scientists hypothesise that insects are actually healthier than other animal meat for people experiencing food insecurity and malnutrition. That’s because insects are eaten whole, which means all the micronutrients present in the entire animal are retained in the food, and therefore passed on to the eater. Even in the more Western products, like cricket powder you’re still eating the whole cricket…just rinsed, roasted and ground like your daily coffee beans. Now this is a big difference from livestock meat where we often choose between muscle or organs which have different nutritional profiles. But while insects may be a more nutritious option for certain populations, experts aren’t yet convinced they’re a healthier swap for those in the West. In North America and Europe, where over-nutrition is the issue, swapping out equal amounts of animal meat for insects likely won’t make an impact on our health. But remember though, the motivation to eat insects has less to do with finding a healthier source of animal protein, and instead with finding an environmentally friendly one. But if this is the case, why aren’t the Beyond Meat munching, oat milk sipping, eco warriors promoting edible insects?
First, insects are still animals and the most environmentally friendly diet is vegan, so strike one. But, insects are a great first step towards shifting the general population’s diet in a more planet friendly direction. However, in news to no one, people in the West are scared of bugs, which is why the biggest psychological barrier to overcome is what experts have so eloquently coined the “ick factor”. Speaking strictly about a Western population, many people, myself included, find insects freaky looking and scary. Cooking with whole locusts is a lot to ask of someone who essentially has an indoor ant spray subscription. But the irony here is that we pay big bucks for lobster and other crustaceans which are essentially like mega underwater bugs, so we can’t be that scared. Another barrier to eating insects is that people consider them “dirty”. And sure, while the wasp making a nest in your wooden fence may not be safe to eat, any insect products sold in a commercial store are going to be farmed, which means they’ll have to follow strict health and safety regulations, just the same as any four or two legged animal farm.
But even if we reassure and educate people about the safety and environmental benefits of eating insects, that doesn’t mean uptake will happen quickly, or at all. Having Cindy in suburbia serve pan-fried mealworms instead of steak to Todd and the kids for Tuesday’s dinner, is probably not going to happen anytime soon. People are generally hesitant to try new foods - unless it’s a wildly artificial flavour of chip, then we’re all on board. But just like how sushi was seen as “weird” in North America a few decades ago, we eventually realised how amazing it is and now it’s cemented as part of the suburban middle class diet. To help insects along the same journey, one method to help ease the introduction is to use them as ingredients in foods we’re already familiar with, like cricket powder in jarred pasta sauce or smoothies.
But before you go all mad scientist meets Anthony Bourdain with your kitchen insect experimentation, there are some considerations you should keep in mind. First, if you have an allergy to shellfish or dust mites, you may also be allergic to eating insects, so best stay away from this food group for now. Second, because insects are such complex organisms, understanding their microbiology is really important for safety, especially because we eat their entire digestive system. So unless an insect, or insect-based food is approved by your country’s regulator, I would resist harvesting wild neighbourhood bugs on your own.
Another thing to keep in mind with insects is their current price point. Because farming them is quite small scale at the moment, buying whole or insect-based products comes at a steep price. But as this industry grows, economies of scale will take over and the prices should drop. Now the final point to ponder with insects is about their most valuable asset - protein. Protein is calculated through a biochemical process that estimates the concentration of nitrogen in a food. Now some insects, like crickets, can have substantial amounts of a substance called chitin in their exoskeleton, and this fibre happens to contain a lot of nitrogen. So, the protein estimates of some insects may be overestimated simply due to the nitrogen in chitin being mistaken for protein. Now before you go through a paleo-fit, first off, not all insects contain chitin. Secondly, the formulas for calculating protein are being adapted. And thirdly, excluding chitin, insects are still a high source of protein. So big breath in and out. You’ll still get swole on bugs.
Despite everything we know about insects, it can still be hard to imagine a future where they are a staple of our diet when we barely eat them today. But I guarantee insects will be a part of our common global diet. In the past decade alone, tons of insect farms, food companies and investors have popped up all over the world. And right now you can buy insect-based pasta in Canada, insect-flour brownie mix in the US, and insect-chips in Australia. Even the conservative and dusty ol’ food regulators have started making changes. In May of 2021 dried yellow mealworm became the first EU-wide approved insect for human consumption.
And while eating insects in “hidden” ways, like cricket powder stirred into yoghourt, is likely how we’ll start to eat these animals in the West, we should also get comfortable with trying them as they’ve been traditionally cooked for centuries. On your next vacation, explore the local insect delicacies, like the chapulines quesadilla filled with crickets - a specialty of Oxaca, Mexico or the soy-sauce drenched silkworm snack in Thailand. I mean, beyond their solid nutrition and incredible environmental benefits, insects are also tasty! Considering the health and wellbeing of our planet relies on us to change how we eat, we may as well start bugging out now.
That’s been the bite for today. Stay hungry.