When I got back from fieldwork in Burkina Faso, this book was waiting for me!

It's a fairly detailed, comprehensive and up-to-date summary of the use of insects as food, covering their history, their nutritional value, their efficiency when farmed, and modern technologies for farming and processing insects. It also gives a good overview of food safety with regard to edible insects. 

Best of all, it opens with the sentence "This book is about optimism."

I'm biased, because I co-wrote that first chapter.. But that first sentence was penned by my wonderful co-author, Florence Dunkel, who's spent the majority of her academic career working on edible insects. She edited the Food Insects Newsletter - still a great resource for anyone who's interested - and has held annual Bug Banquets for over 25 years.

She also wrote the final sentence of our Chapter, which is simply: "Enjoy!" 

I hope that everyone and anyone who reads it - or in fact everyone and anyone who is working in this exciting field - does exactly that. And if you'd like a copy of the book, do let me know, I might be able to send you something!

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. 

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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.
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I was able to take these photos due to the privilege of living among people who have a deep understanding of the soils of the forests around them.

Their understanding of the soil means that they know how to find and befriend tiny, aggressive ‘hebo’ – black wasps. They know which are male, which are female, which are drones and which are new queens. They know from glancing at the forest floor around them and from checking the direction of the wind and the sun and from recalling the weather events of the current year, where these wasps are likely to have made their home.

‘Hebo’ live in the soil. Their name in japanese means ‘bee of the earth’, and every year in springtime hundreds of people with a great love and respect for these creatures seek out their nests while they are still small. Once found, they bring the nests back to their homes and raise them on a rich diet in order to eventually harvest and eat some, and preserve others. For every three nests harvested in autumn as the earth cools, one is left to ensure next year’s harvest, and thousands of well-fed new queens vacate their nest to hibernate over the winter, leaving behind their beautiful construction (the main nest shown in the picture, with its columns and caverns).

But back to the springtime. Finding the entrance to a springtime wasp nest is hard enough, but this is only the beginning. The nest may be as small as a ping pong ball, and the entrance tunnel may be several inches long. And the nest itself is fragile and papery; the soil itself is its main source of protection. The next task, then, is to feel your way into the soil, through the tunnel and any tributaries, and to carefully dig out the nest without harming the wasps.

This composite image for InTandem is dedicated to a man who was famed for his ability to do just this. His name was Mr Keiji Ando, he was a teacher by profession, and I as his unofficial student (one among many) learnt a great deal from his love and understanding of the ‘bees of the earth’ and the ecosystem in which they lived. He was the elected leader of the national wasp society in Japan, and just three months ago he told me with his usual infectious enthusiasm that once again in June this year he was looking forward to seeking out the nests in the forests surrounding his home.

Unfortunately this wasn’t to be – I think he knew this, and was voicing his dreams in full knowledge of their fragility, something that isn't easy – and he passed away from a very aggressive and swift cancer in April, when the wasps had barely emerged from their hibernation.

Thanks to Mr Ando I was able to see the world from a wasp’s eye view, and with this image I invite you to do the same.

Mr Keiji Ando, you were an inspiring and unforgettable friend and teacher. Thank you for everything, and I hope that I can do some justice to your enthusiasm for life and generosity of spirit in my own life and work.

After the conference, I went on a research trip to look at small scale fisheries on the coast of the Boso peninsula, in Chiba prefecture. Again, not directly connected to edible insects, but fish are a natural resources that are harvested for food in Japan and in some cases 'semi-domesticated' (well - cultivated). 

Photos (above, clockwise from top left): A buyer checking the morning's catch at a fish market; The head of the local fisheries cooperative showing us his semi-cultivated young abalones; A live abalone waiting to be cooked; The tuna auction at Tsukuji, Tokyo; Karaoke around an indoor barbecue.