A new look at insects as food

If the idea of eating insects as part of your daily meal seems unthinkable, consider a few numbers: Just 100 grams of Gryllus bimaculatus, a species of cricket, contains 58.32 grams of protein and 11.88 grams of fat.  

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has set the benchmark at 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight which roughly translates to 56 grams of protein per day for a sedentary male and 46 grams of protein per day for sedentary females.  

For a country like India, where just 5 percent of rural Indians and 18 percent of urban Indians meet their daily protein requirements (according to the National Institute of Nutrition’s ‘What India Eats’ report), insects could function as an effective supplement and solution to protein insufficiency.  

This is why regions in the north-east, besides tribes in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, consume approximately 303 species of insects as part of their diet.  

Entomophagy – the practice of eating insects – is not unique to India or indeed the so-called “developing” world. Nations like Australia and Mexico have a long-standing tradition of consuming insects – so much so that they are working on novel ways to make entomophagy more palatable. 

2 billion consumers 

Surveys suggest that close to two billion people supplement their diets with insects, and of the one million known insect species, 2,000-odd are consumed by humans. Some of the most consumed insects include beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets.  

“I have been talking about the consumption of insects as part of an urban diet for years now,” says Professor Jharna Chakraborty from the Rajiv Gandhi University. While she specialises in zoology, she has been exploring edible insects and chemical ecology for the last two decades.  

“We are sitting on a goldmine of nutrients but because we have a misplaced idea of ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ we are not consuming it as much as we should, especially in urban populations. Lots of communities in India, and the world at large, have consumed insects, and sometimes it’s not only to stave off starvation or out of desperation. In some cases, these insects are just tasty, some even taste like prawns,” Chakraborty says. 

It’s worth noting that just as how some may find prawns unappetising, insects too may not be to everybody’s palate. 

In big demand 

Chakraborty spoke of a tribe in Odisha where date palm worms (found at the root of the date palm tree) are nearly impossible to buy from farmers for research because they are in such high demand.  

“I can’t even get 500 samples to run studies on them,” she rues. “No matter how much money you offer them, they will not stop eating them as soon as they find them. These are these large worms, very tasty, and very nutritious.” 

To further this cause, a 2021 paper by the Maastricht University in the Netherlands proved that insect protein is as beneficial as ‘gold standard’ milk protein, and has the same performance on digestion, absorption and on the ability to stimulate muscle production. The research also showed that insects offer a whole range of essential vitamins, minerals, fibres and healthy fatty acids, such as omega 6 and omega 3.  

This comes, albeit distantly, on the heels of a 2013 United Nations report which insisted that insects should be seen as ‘an alternative protein-rich food source capable of replacing conventional meat’. The report categorically states that consuming insects could mitigate the effects of rearing livestock.  

‘The ingestion of insects is being seen as a solution to the problems of global hunger as well as widespread resource degradation. These minuscule creatures require little food and space to breed, thus providing a certain democracy where even the poorest can realise their production,’ read the UN report.  

Soft on environment 

As the report suggests, entomophagy can play an integral role in the ongoing energy-consumption crisis. Insects are cold-blooded i.e., they do not use energy from feed to maintain body temperature. ‘On average, insects use 2 kg of feed to produce 1 kilo of insect meat. Cattle, at the other end of the spectrum, require 8 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef,’ noted the FAO.  

Additionally, insects do not produce the harmful emissions that cattle do. 

“We have been making cricket powder and selling it to people in the neighbourhood for a few years now,” says Vikram Mantri, an environmentalist and farmer in the Kodaikanal region of Tamil Nadu. “While we don’t consume nearly as much meat as they do in the Western world, we cannot ignore the environmental impact of rearing cattle or even poultry. 

“It’s cheaper to grow insects and it takes very little space, so I expect more and more insect farmers to come through. Silkworms also should be utilised more. I feel like there’s massive wastage there.”  

Silkworm waste 

The Central Sericultural Research and Training Institute of Mysore has been experimenting with converting leftover silkworm pupae into food for a while. Even the Madhya Pradesh Silk Federation tried selling canned silkworm pupae for general consumption in the early 1950s. These experiments, while successful in the laboratory, were not so when put out to consumers. The taboo remains, for reasons that could be more than just cultural. 

“I grew up eating caterpillars,” says Shradda Gurang, an Assamese based in New Delhi. “When I was there (Assam), I did not think of it much, but when I moved to Mumbai and then New Delhi and then went back home [a hamlet close to Itanagar] I couldn’t eat it.  

“I knew it was tasty and it was something I used to love, but something about being in the city changed my outlook. My friends and family made fun of me because I was a ‘city girl’ now. But I went back last month, and I forced myself to eat it. It was amazing. A little salt, some chili powder, and it’s amazing.”   

People have had similar positive experiences with red ants, grasshoppers, termites etc, but close to two decades since the UN pushed for the consumption of insects, there has been little movement in the direction. Of late, though, some restaurants have included insects as part of their ingredients and a select few organisations have tried utilising insects for food. 

Trend, taboo & allergy 

This would explain why Global Market Insights expected the edible insect market to grow to over $700 million by 2024. Also, the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (United Kingdom) established that a third of Britons will be consuming insects with regularity by 2029. 

By and large, the negative perception surrounding insects is fully entrenched in Western societies, noted Stephen R Kellert. Kellert, the author of ‘Values and Perceptions of Invertebrates’, noticed that insect harvesting has been associated with the hunter-gatherer era and in turn with ‘primitive’ forms of food acquisition.  

Cultural disgust aside, the consumption of insects is not without risk as some can carry allergy-causing microorganisms and affect some individuals who are sensitive to them. This is why research is on into the standardisation of rearing edible insects and the building of a mature industrial line – though it remains to be seen how the problem of allergies will be tackled. 

Besides allergies, protein digestibility could be a concern as there is not enough conclusive evidence to prove that humans can digest the hard exoskeleton of some of these insects. Without the exoskeleton though, the protein digestibility is around reported to be around 77-78 percent.   

All things considered, we may be on the cusp of a gradual shift in gastronomical values. Until then, let the idea of a cockroach milk ice cream tease your fancy.