ENTOMOPHAGY … YOU EAT BUGS?
Gross you’re never cooking for me again! White people they can be ignorant sometimes! (Tongue-in-Cheek playing the race card) Sadly, it’s going to take a lot more education, availability, a little courage and a convincing entomophagy recipe to break through the barriers and taboos. Everywhere else in the world that isn’t white, there I did it again, has been eating these delicious morsels for centuries. Besides, let’s face it I bet you’ve put worse things in your mouth. So a little tiny dried out cricket seasoned to perfection isn’t going to kill you!
Before I go too far into this I want to thank Stacie Weingarten-Goldin from Entomo Farms who was looking for Entomophagy ambassadors. Of which I gladly signed up for!
HOW DID I GET STARTED?
The ick factor of course! I think I had too much testosterone back in those days. I saw an ad in the paper for some butterfly conservatory and something about try eating bugs. Like I was going to go look at butterflies…I wanted to see if I could eat something gross and live to tell about it.
Buddy tossed some live mealworms (not the most humane method) on a pan and within a second or two they stiffened right out. I popped them into my mouth expecting something gushy and earthy….to my surprise they tasted like dry pine nuts! Ever since then I have been on the lookout for insects to incorporate into my diet.
OKAY, LET’S GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY. IT’S NOT VEGETARIAN!
INSECTS ARE FROM THE ANIMAL KINGDOM!
If a living organism has animal cells, it’s an animal…including worms!
LET’S DO A QUICK CRASH COURSE
What is Entomophagy? It’s the practice of people eating insects.- Why would anybody want to eat a bug? It’s a highly sustainable food source packed with proteins, amino acids, Iron, Zinc, Potassium, Calcium, Niacin, Magnesium and B12.
- Don’t they taste gross? That all depends on your pallet. For example not everybody likes stink bugs. I personally don’t like the taste of some bugs where others might. Just don’t eat those ones! I like the ones that taste like nuts or shrimp….those are great!
- Impact of Environmental, Economic and Nutritional benefits trumps that from any other protein source. Here are some fun facts!
- 1 lbs. of beef requires (10 lbs of feed, 1,000 gallons of water, 200 sq. ft. of pasture or 2 acres per cow)
- 1 lbs of Insects requires (2 lbs. feed, 1 gallon of water, 2 cubic ft. of space.)
- A single cricket lay’s 100 eggs in three months about 5-10 per day. Say half are females. 2,500 are acting like rabbits and now you have 312,500,000 hopping insects. 1,000 crickets is equal to one pound. So that is 312,500 lbs of crickets in one year and equivalent to 300+ cows.
I’m not going to rewrite all the things that you need to know about this subject. There is a book out there from Dennelle Martin called Edible (Girl Meets Bug) that is a great source of information. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization published this very detailed 200 page report. Not to mention all the other Entomophagy ambassadors out there in Googleland trying to spread the word to the white people!
Master Brad...ya, that flying dog held me captive forever, in the end the eggs never hatched. Grrrr
I had totally forgotten about this, my Portuguese dogs are still in therapy.
Try is with a couple of sprigs of tarragon while you're making the sauce, not too much just enough to…
Looks good
Good catch...I forgot to add the good stuff. Butter. :)