For a few days, I'm 'in between'. I finished being an employee last week, and I'll start being a graduate student next week. But for now, I'm neither. So I decided to spend yesterday at the fantastic Museum of Natural History in Oxford, taking photos of some of the creatures I've become so strangely attached to during the past few years. I was able to use the museums's SLR camera and photographic software to take photos of some specimens from the Hope Entomological Collections, and also of my own specimens. This meant that I could take 6-10 pictures of each sample and merge them together, so that every part of the insect is in focus.

First, here are three photos from the Hope Entomological Collections. The wasps and hornets that I came to know in central Japan:

Then, here are a few photos of my own samples - insects from Lui Kotale, Democratic Republic of the Congo:

And last but not least, a detailed portrait of a giant hornet, freshly retrieved from some hornet liquor (product of Kushihara):

The picture above is actually 36 separate images, merged together to ensure that the entire head is in focus. Next time I have some free time I am hoping to take one of the whole hornet, part by part, and merge them together..if you like that kind of thing, then watch this space!

According to the media and of course the burgeoning insect industry, the answer to this question is (broadly speaking) a resounding 'yes'. Edible insects are highly nutritious, eco-friendly and may even have the potential to challenge social and gender inequality through improving livelihoods.

And, with FAO support and a concerted effort to change legislation to encourage the sale of insects as food across Europe, it looks like edible insects may be here to stay.

So, how ‘healthy’ are insects compared to meat?

This was the question that we asked in our recent research project, a collaborative effort between researchers in the UK and Japan, funded by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. The results were published by the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition earlier this week.

We compared the nutritional content of 10 commercially available insects with 3 commonly consumed meats.

To analyse this information we chose two objective measures of the ‘healthiness’ of foods - the WXYfm nutrient profiling model, which is used by the UK government to regulate food advertising, and the Nutrient Value Score (NVS), which is used by the World Food Programme (WFP) to inform the composition of food baskets in refugee camps.

And what were the results?

Well, while insects may indeed have environmental advantages over meat, no insects are objectively ‘healthier’ than meats in a UK context. That is, in a context in which cardiovascular disease is the greatest health problem. 

However, crickets, palm weevil larvae and mealworms were all significantly healthier than beef and chicken according to the model used to evaluate foods for refugee camps.This is because these insects have a particularly high vitamin and mineral content, which makes them ideal foods for combatting problems of malnutrition. 

So what is the take-home message?

Well, if you’re at risk of malnutrition, palm weevils are by far and away your best option, closely followed by mealworms and crickets. This is great news, because all three species can be farmed far more sustainably and efficiently than cows or chickens. Ah, and they’re also delicious. 

But otherwise, it looks like insects are on a par with beef in terms of health benefits. Instead, to combat rising incidence of diet-related disease, the best option that we have remains the same - to reduce the amount of animal products that we eat on a day-to-day basis. 

----------
For more information, please take a look at the paper, which is open access. The results of this project will also be presented in detail at an upcoming workshop on insects as food and feed to be held at the University of Oxford in December, hosted by the Oxford Martin School.
----------

Here's a summary of our Bug Banquet @ Green Man Festival experience, which was funded by the Kickstarter I mentioned in my last post, and turned out to be one of the most exciting science outreach events I've ever been lucky enough to be a part of.

So, thank you to everyone who was a part of this event :) I have never done an 'outreach' event that has reached so many people before - but l hope it is the first of many!


(And thank you also to the festival organisers - Green Man was a great place to be, and in between all of the insect-related excitement, there was an amazing range of live music to enjoy. Favourite performances would have to be Sun Ra Arkestra and the Deep Throat Choir. Food-wise, I discovered that the Cornwall-based Goan Seafood Company makes possibly the best curries in the entire world.)

NB: Finally, this is an important thing to mention, and became a part of several of our discussions.. Our main challenge in putting on this event was that of preservation. We spent four summer days camping at the festival, and we needed some way to ensure that our insects would not go off. We had no fridge, no smoker, no dryer… So Becky, our talented chef who is more than familiar with all of the restrictions of food health and safety laws, not to mention the logistical problems involved in transporting food over long distances, opted for sugar. She made a variety of sweet dishes - brownies, nougat, even a jelly - and although this meant that festival-goers could not experience insects in the way that they are traditionally eaten - usually fresh, and as part of a balanced, savoury meal - it did mean that we were able to give thousands of people their first taste of insects.