Admittedly this is not exactly a common problem among most of the people who might be reading this.

But many insects are highly seasonal, and when you are able to harvest them, you often find yourself with surplus - for example, people can allegedly gather more than 100kg of grasshoppers per day in September, just after the rice harvest! Admittedly you need a motorbike and some level of expertise to do so…but you get the idea.

Recently, in the absence of any level of expertise and not even a motorbike to help me, I managed to acquire many, many more insects than I could possibly eat or even give away to friends. This is mainly thanks to the kindness of others, and hopefully I can repay them in some way, some day. Anyway - what should I do with these insects? 

The Japanese method is to make them into 'tsukudani' - simmer them with soy sauce, mirin and sugar until they harden, and the high salt and sugar content will preserve them for weeks or months. But…could I preserve them without using these condiments? 

Recently, when offering samples of traditionally prepared Japanese insects at international conferences, I have received the same feedback any number of times 'Delicious, but too sweet'; 'Tasty, but a bit too salty', 'Can't taste the insect' ...

All fair points, & I've had the same thoughts myself. So you want to taste the insect? Well, in my limited experience of these things, I've definitely come across a few ways of preserving things that mean they keep their original taste, and can be kept without refrigeration/freezing for a fairly long time - 1. smoking, 2. sun-drying, and 3. making pate. 

So, I figured that I'd give these three a go.

And there ends my summary of ways to preserve insects, as far as I've been told or shown. If any turn out to be particularly delicious and/or long lived, I'll post the recipes  here, but meanwhile - please let me know if you've any other suggestions for preservation methods! I've got a whole lot of insects to experiment with :)

The first Insects to Feed the World conference closed today with a standing ovation from a packed lecture hall, as 450 participants from 45 different countries rose in thanks to Arnold Van Huis, the conference organiser, and the team of people behind the event. 

The energy and enthusiasm was tangible. As one presenter, D Imrie-Situnayake of Tiny Farms, pointed out, entomophagy as a 'movement' or current topic has a good deal of momentum behind it right now. In the same presentation he explained to us the concept of open-source technology: His company shares their design for a home mealworm farm online, completely free-of-charge, for anyone who would like to try breeding mini-livestock at home. There's also a forum to help members with any problems they might encounter when starting up a breeding colony. It was inspiring to hear, and he's intending to upload open source plans for a cricket farm fairly soon, too. Perhaps I should do the same for wasps?! Mealworms can be used in human food (the picture below shows ) and also as pet food. 

Anyway. I have titled this blog post 'Eating insects? Disgusting' because many of the talks on the final day of the conference addressed the issue of the prevailing taboo against edible insects in 'Western' culture. 

Paul Rozin, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who works on the psychology of disgust, began the day with a really interesting keynote speech addressing the the question, Why do we develop feelings of disgust towards (animals such as) insects?

The emotion of disgust is not found in human children below 4-5 years of age. ‘Disgusting’ is an adjective that we associate not only with taste and appearance but also with a sense of contamination …it’s never used in association with foods made from grain or vegetables, only from animal food products. And is it rational? Paul described a study in which participants were invited to take a second sip of juice after a cockroach had fallen into their drink… and, again, after a sterilised cockroach had fallen into their drink. Needless to say the cockroach has then been taken out of the drink, in both cases. Yet the participants refused a second sip, suggesting that their sense of disgust was strong enough to override empirical data. As Rozin put it, the drink 'had been cockroached'.

If insects are as ‘healthy’ as we are led to believe, why is it that we have maintained this irrational cultural barrier toward accepting them as food?

Well, firstly, it’s not just ‘us’. A number of human cultures worldwide, even prior to Western influence, rejected insects as food. Others, incidentally, rejected livestock, and others still rejected cultivated plant foods. And today, all around the world, people continue to make these decisions, in alignment with personally, tribally, or culturally imposed boundaries. 

And there’s basically nothing wrong with this – except that, following an unquestioned hegemony perpetrated by a cultural and financially stable majority can at times act as a wave of support to a system that is irresponsible in its attitude towards long term environmental concerns, patronising in its attitude towards short term economic concerns, and downright stupid in its closed-minded attitude towards the rapidly changing nature of global society.

So, a couple of questions, to close this unexpected outpouring of frustration at the closed-mindedness and inequality that definitely exist but are perhaps not relevant to anyone reading this blog: When will be the next time that someone from another part of this diverse world offers you something that is part of their local food system, some animal product that doesn't fall into the ‘food’ category in your culture? Perhaps you’ll be at a friend’s party, perhaps on holiday and browsing the local food stalls, pr perhaps nowhere more exotic than at the local restaurant down the street… Wherever you are, remember that this is a part of a place that they identify with and want to share with you. And expressing your disgust before you even try it may well be akin to rejecting their identity before you know anything about them.

The photos above show a few of the insect dishes we were given at the Insects to Feed the World conference today. These were developed by (1,2,4) the Hotel Reehorst and (3) the Nordic Food Lab, a not-for-profit organisation based on a boat in Copenhagen that is committed to investigating the deliciousness of traditional insect foods and culinary techniques. Photos show (from top left, clockwise): 1) Cricket caesar salad with quail's egg; 2) grasshopper salad with an Asian dressing; 3) bee larvae ceviche with elderflower and elderberry vinegar and red shiso (from the Nordic Food lab); and 4) a mealworm wrap with blue cheese. The ceviche was inspired - Ben and Josh at the Nordic Food Lab combined the Spanish method of marinating fresh raw seafood in acidic juices and some local spice, with the luxury of of newly harvested Hymenoptera larvae. I'll definitely try this with fresh giant hornet larvae later this year...

We also had a selection of tasters at the Japanese booth, shown below: Wasp larvae in soy; grasshoppers in soy; silkworm in soy; wasp larvae miso; grasshopper miso and silkworm miso. Everyone who tried them today also completed a short questionnaire about what they thought of the taste of each insect food. I'm hoping to find out whether age, gender and geographical/cultural background have any effect on the peoples' reaction to the taste of traditionally prepared insect foods.

I can't write about insect foods, though, without mentioning a couple of things about the feasibility of these products becoming both widely available and genuinely popular with consumers. 


At the conference, we have also heard about the incredible potential of insects for reducing the amount of land currently devoted to protein-based crops such as soya. This is particularly important to EU countries, which are currently only 30% self-sufficient in protein overall. Due to the short generation time and population density of house flies (Musca domestica) and black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens) it is theoretically possible to produce 1000t per hectare of land per year if you choose to farm flies, a 200-fold increase on the 0.9t per hectare per year currently produced by farming soya crops. This is exciting, but what about the taste? Surely flies can't taste as good as the crickets shown in the photo above.. Crickets, too, can be farmed and yield quantities of edible protein per hectare that are far greater than those produced by protein crop farmers or even traditional livestock farmers. Methods of grasshopper cultivation are also currently undergoing development. And, as we can learn from countries which traditionally harvest wild insects, there are ways in which we can sustainably harvest fairly large quantities of wild caught insects - probably the most delicious insects of all. 


In short, the opportunities are endless in terms of feasibility, but there are still many unknowns surrounding the potential ecological, health and economic impacts of a more insect-based diet. Many of these issues are specific to local areas, and require appropriate pilot research before insects are promoted as a sustainable way of improving peoples' health and/or livelihoods. One concern that may be common to all areas is the danger of repeating past mistakes that have contributed to some of the problems in our current food system, for example through the over-harvesting of insect resources, or the exploitation of small scale farmers by large scale businesses.

Finally, as for popularity among consumers, it seems that insects may well be an increasingly desired food product in future years. We heard on the first day of the conference that insect demand is increasing in several Southeast Asian countries including Thailand and Japan. As for 'the West', check out the trend in rising numbers of businesses selling edible insects in Canada and the US, shown below (taken from a poster by S Stokhof de Jong and F Dunkel, also on show at the conference):

If you happen to be based in North America and would like to try out insect foods for yourself, here are the details of some of the restaurants and the insects they serve (from the same poster):

Yesterday was the first day of the Insects to Feed the World conference, co-organised by Wageningen University and the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations). I am here to present an update on entomophagy in Japan and also a more theoretical poster, with some original case study data, on the concept of ‘semi-domestication’ in edible insects. We also have a 'Japanese Insects' booth at the conference, with samples of traditional Japanese insect foods for people to taste and purchase.

Below are a few highlights from other posters and exhibitors at the conference - 4000 cricket-rearing centres in Africa, the socio-political implications of the entomophagy movement, and the cholesterol content of edible insects...

'Flying Food' is a public-private partnership project (with Dutch, Kenyana nd Ugandan partners from the academic and commercial sectors) launching cricket rearing in Kenya and Uganda. It will run until 2017 and aims to provide nutritious food for one million people in Kenya in Uganda through the establishment of 4000 cricket rearing stations and 2 processing centres.

This photo (left) shows the packaging for a couple of insect products produced in Uganda, which use the slogan 'Another vegan meat!' 

The products are 'Nsenene (grasshoppers)' which have been prepared with salt, onions and tomatoes. They are packaged in plastic and instructions on the packet read 'store in a cool dry place. Use within 3 weeks after opening.' The packet also claims that the product is 'rich in fat (43g/100g), protein (40g/100g), phosphorus, potassium and vitamin A'. 

This photo (right) shows a really interesting poster from the conference, on Entomophagy and Capitalism. The author presents a critique of the entomophagy movement form a sociological perspective, highlighting some really important issues that I haven't seen being addressed in relation to entomophagy before now. In his own words:

"the commodification of insects as food can - and often does - take the form of a neoliberal expansion rather than creating a 'green paradise'. Spheres previously based on subsistence  are being interfused with market principles, creating new necessities and dependencies."

…

"and impending virtual continuation of the status quo in a new green disguise should activate a critical discussion. Ignoring the danger of entomophagy becoming a part of the [social] problems that it is expected to solve may hinder its great potential from unfolding."

This poster presents some data on the cholesterol content of edible insects, and in doing so, addresses an issue that I think is really important: Often, 'insects' are labelled as 'healthy foods', a vague turn of phrase, and this hides a great deal of underlying variation. By variation, I mean both in terms of the diversity of the insects themselves, and the range of definitions of what makes a food 'healthy'.

The poster shows that one of the insects that is currently being reared for human consumption, the cricket Gryllus assimillis, contains (at 322mg/100g) more cholesterol per 100g than an egg yolk. Tenebrio mollitor, the mealworm species also being bred for animal and human consumption, also has a fairly high cholesterol content at 223mg per 100g. As the authors point out, 'insects as a food alternative should not be accepted uncritically'.

The main reason for my coming back to the UK this week was to give a paper at the Oxford Food Security Forum, which was held last Sunday. I've uploaded the slides from my presentation here, and I've also written a short (but fully referenced!) post below exploring the relevance of wild foraging to global food security, and using perspectives from cultural primatology to make my point! I hope it might be of interest :)

The photo above, taken early in the morning in late Autumn, shows the beginning of a hornet hunt. By 5pm, the hunters were enjoying the profits of their hard work – 4kg of larval hornets, cooked to perfection and enjoyed with a cold beer.

At the recent Oxford Student Food Security conference, I presented a paper titled: Wild foraging and food security: A case study on edible wasp and hornet collection in rural Japan. In terms of its relevance to the topic of ‘Critical and alternative perspectives’ in addressing the future of food security, I intended to highlight two major issues. The first of these is the collection and consumption of wild foods, a once-ubiquitous yet now increasingly marginalised practice(1,2) that has recently received attention in the context of combating food security in developing countries(3). The second is the use of insects as human food, a consumer choice that remains a niche and novelty option in the Western world(4,5), but one that is still made regularly by an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide in the course of their daily lives, as highlighted by a recent report by the FAO(6). 

So, why should we bother making the conscious choice to go into ‘the wild’, seek out these ‘weird’ foods, and then take the trouble to use them in our daily lives? After all,

Culturally prejudiced food choices are an ape’s prerogative -

Yes, that’s right - our closest relatives also choose to shun or embrace certain foods, according to their own cultural practices. In the same way that, for example, people in my country (England) choose not to exploit the abundant and nutritious kelp that can be found along our coasts, the first chimpanzee community I came to know (in Semliki, Uganda) chooses to ignore the protein-rich nuts of the oil palm(7). In Japan, where I live now, kelp is a popular food product. And in Bossou-Nimba, Guinea, where my friends and colleagues work, the chimpanzees love their palm nuts(8).

If you were to look at the lists of wild edible plants and insects worldwide, and to compare their distribution with that of the people who choose to eat them and the people who choose to ignore them, you would find thousands of similar examples(9,10,11,etc). As a species we are predisposed to hold cultural prejudices about foods that are both safe and good for us.

- But, we don't have to stick to them.

This is highly relevant to food security.

Using the information we have about the food choices made worldwide, we can expand our repertoire of locally available foods. We can use the knowledge accumulated by others to forage for the edible wild foods that our culture has historically shunned. Yes, Europeans too can enjoy the thrill of a wasp hunt, Japanese-style! As a species with the unique advantage of global knowledge exchange, we can make the conscious choice to rise above our cultural food prejudices in favour of food choices that are diverse, nutritious, and ecologically sustainable. They are also free, for those who know how and where to collect them.

Both wild foraging and edible insects are currently marketed to a wealthy minority with surplus time and money to spend, via privately-run bushcraft courses and one-off events. But what if wild edible plant and insect identification were included in standard biology lessons, and what if affordable wild foraging tutorials were offered at community colleges, and what if government-funded research projects engaged communities in rediscovering methods for sustainable wild harvesting - could these small alterations help to chip away at some of the problems with today’s food system?

In my presentation I use a case study from rural Japan to argue that the collection and consumption of wild foods has multiple benefits: Firstly, wild foods tend to be rich sources of micronutrients(12), because they grow in nutrient-diverse soils rather than single-crop fields. They also come in a diverse range of varieties, and dietary diversity has been directly linked to nutritional adequacy(13) and health status(14). But also, the benefits of wild foraging extend beyond health and nutrition. In order to collect wild foods, we must enter the ‘wilderness’ that still surrounds us, fragmented as it may be. And in doing this, we acquire knowledge of the natural environment and also the incentive to protect it. 


For practical information about collecting wild plants and insects:

Pocket foraging guide to edible wild plants found in the UK, with photos (PDF): http://www.countrylovers.co.uk/wfs/wfsURBFORAGER.pdf

11 wild animal foods (insects and non-insects alike) and how to collect and prepare them (html): http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/edible-insects-zebz1305znsp.aspx?PageId=1#axzz2zHXZSV8k

Information about hunting for wasps and hornets http://www.libertyruth.com/traditional-entomophagy-in-japan.html

 

References

1.     Kuhnlein and Receveur (1996) Dietary change and traditional food systems of indigenous peoples Annu Rev. Nuw. 16:417-42

2.     Bharuca and Pretty (2010) The roles and values of wild foods in agricultural systems Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 27 September 2010 vol. 365 no. 1554 2913-2926

3.     Mody M et al (2006) Potential role for wild vegetables in household food security: a preliminary case study in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 6(1)

4.     Yen A L (2009) Edible insects: Traditional knowledge or western phobia? Entomological Research 39 (2009) 289–298

5.     Caparros Megido et al (2014) Edible Insects Acceptance by Belgian Consumers: Promising Attitude for Entomophagy Development Journal of Sensory Studies, Volume 29, Issue 1, pages 14–20, February 2014

6.     FAO (2013) Edible Insects: Future prospects for food and feed security Forestry paper 171 Available online: http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e00.htm

7.     McGrew W, Marchant L, Payne C, Webster T, Hunt K (2010) Chimpanzees at Semliki Ignore Oil Palms Pan Africa News 17(2)

8.     Humle T and Matsuzawa T (2004) Oil Palm Use by Adjacent Communities of Chimpanzees at Bossou and Nimba Mountains, West Africa International Journal of Primatology Volume 25, Issue 3, pp 551-581

9.     Tardio et al (2005) Wild food plants traditionally used in the province of Madrid, Central Spain, Economic Botany, Volume 59, Issue 2, pp 122-136

10.  Parrdo-de-Santayana et al (2007) Traditional knowledge of wild edible plants used in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal): a comparative study Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 2007, 3:27 

11.  Ali-Shtayeh et al (2008) Traditional knowledge of wild edible plants used in Palestine (Northern West Bank): A comparative study Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 2008, 4:13 

12.  Grivetti and Ogle (2000) Value of traditional foods in meeting macro- and micronutrient needs: the wild plant connection, Nutrition Research Reviews 13, 31-46

13.  Mirmiran et al (2004) Dietary diversity score in adolescents - a good indicator of the nutritional adequacy of diets: Tehran lipid and glucose study Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2004, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p56- 

This is a post that I intended to write last week, when I was still in Japan…but I will post it now, a week late, because I think/hope it might be interesting. As I mentioned before, people living in rural Japan collect and eat a huge variety of wild plants. Some of the people in my village have been teaching me how to collect and prepare these plants, so in an attempt to put this knowledge to good use I've been spending my pre-waking hours (by which I mean, the time before 6.30am, the time before one needs to be up and about, the time I should perhaps be spending running and/or working on my vegetable garden but somehow the idea of morning foraging was just so attractive..) heading to the forests above my house and collecting wild plants. And, as a result, I have learnt a great deal about some common wild plants that can be found during late April in rural Japan!

Each of these photos, below, represents 20-30 minutes of foraging in the forest as the sun was rising over Kushihara last week:

In these photos, there's 

'koshi-abura' ( Eleuthrococcus sciadophylloides, shoots of young trees, usually cooked as tempura but also good chopped finely and used as a herb to flavour salads or rice paper spring rolls. Known as Siberian ginseng, according to Wikipedia, and a close relative in the same genus is used in Chinese medicine to 'increase energy')

'tsukushi' (Equisetum spp, young horsetail grass, which should be boiled for at least 15 minutes before preparationn to remove the bitter taste, these are usually lightly fried and cooked with eggs  but also prepared as tsukudani - simmered in soy and mirin for longer term preservation - or pickled in soy, mirin and vinegar)

dandelion leaves (These are a European wild-collected plant and not commonly collected in Japan! But, they are abundant in the area where I live, so I thought I'd try them. Eat them as hitashi, a recipe that is common here for other wild leaves, or fried with garlic, onions and chilli)

'warabi' (Pteridium aquiline, young ferns. I was able to collect SO much warabi! The ferns are bitter and must first be prepared by chopping off the heads and then place in boiling water with a substance to take away the bitterness. This substance can be bought in shops and when it is, it is known as aku-nuki, but the traditional method used ash. Once the water has cooled the ferns can be removed, washed and pickled in soy, vinegar, and mirin.)

unknown leaf (Shown in the bottom right photo, very recognisable, almost like an ornamental plant, but in fact found growing wild and cooked as tempura)

udou (Aralia cordata, Japanese spikenard. The stems are peeled and then cooked as described above for warabi to remove the bitterness: thrown in boiling water with ash or shop-bought bitter-taste-remover. These are a bit thicker than warabi and therefore it's best to actually boil the plant in the mixture for 5-10 minutes or so. Then, they are served with a dipping sauce, usually su-miso, a combination of vinegar and miso. I served them with wasp larvae miso, though, and no one complained… the young leaves at the top of the stem are also eaten, these are usually cooked as tempura.)

I hvave also collected (but failed to take photos of)

'take no ko' (Young bamboo, the pointed heads barely reaching above the earth. These are harder work than most mountain vegetables, as they have to be hacked and dug from the ground with a large spade,  but definitely worth it. Once retrieved they are boiled with nuka, the discarded rice husks leftover after rice is polished in the Autumn, to remove the bitterness. Depending on size and thickness this can take up to 2 hours of boiling. Then, they can be sliced and eaten as they are, perhaps with a dip on the side, used in salads, or boiled in soy and mirin.)

'tara no me' (Aralia elata, the shoots of young trees. These are most commonly cooked as tempura)

wasabi leaves (Wasabia japonica, the young leaves of the wasabi plant, found growing wild in water logged areas, and one they have been washed and cut they are placed in boiling water, which is then rinsed. Then, sugar is added and the leaves are shaken with the sugar in a tupperware or other container, to release their strong spicy flavour. These leaves are rinsed and then pickled in soy, mirin and vinegar.)

Here are a couple of photos of some of the plants being processed (bamboo shoots boiled en masse with nuka; warabi; wasabi leaves in boiling water.) 

Thank you to Tetsuo for letting me use his camera for these! And thank you to Yuko, Teru, Tetsuo, Sayoko, for teaching me about sansai and showing me how and where to collect them.

If you are reading this and have any questions about these plants please feel free to email me (I know very little myself but I can ask around), and also if you know anything about similar practices for preparing wild-growing vegetables in the UK, also please be in touch.

This, above, is the view I am looking out at as I write this; the meadow, home and playground, with buttercups and dandelions and cow parsley and grass snakes and hedgehogs and molehills and thistles and the occasional muntjac deer and, when you know which ones to pick, grasses with sweet stems and nettles with sweet flowers.

And, photos below, from left to right: A duck having a lie in this morning; A tree I've never noticed before; Ivy and cow parsley by the river; a beautiful tea bowl made by a cornishman; bluebells in the forest near my house; my father making our weekly bread. 

It's really very nice to be home :)