Waiter, there’s a bug in my soup
HEALTHY DIET: PROJECT PROMOTES FARMING OF SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVES
Siem Reap – Ant spring rolls, silkworm taro croquettes and a “bug mac” – Cambodia’s first insect tapas restaurant is mixing cocktail culture with creepy crawly fare.
At the busy Bugs Cafe in the tourist town of Siem Reap, chef Seiha Soeun stands over a sizzling wok in the kitchen tossing in crickets, grasshoppers, tarantulas and scorpions.
Sold at street vendors or in Instagram-friendly tourist spots, insects aren’t new to Cambodian palates. But they are usually served one way: fried, with dipping sauce, and maybe a cold beer.
“We have a different kind of menu,” Seiha said, adding he practised making the “bug mac” – a patty of pureed ant, bee, silkworm and cricket topped with a slice of cheese and pickle – many times to get it just right.
On a recent evening at the restaurant, French co-founder Davy Blouzard greeted curious diners and explained the menu.
“We want to show that it’s possible to make quality food with insects,” he said.
There is sweet potato cream with bee larvae, silkworm and mango flambe, and even a cricket cheesecake dessert.
Besides being a cheap source of protein, insect cuisine is also a possible answer to rising concern over the environmental impact of livestock farming. –
Studies show that insect farming emits less carbon and methane gas.
There is a wealth of indigenous knowledge about capturing and eating insects in sub-Saharan Africa. But the development of edible insects as a food industry has been very slow, despite its many potential benefits.
Sustainability is one. Insects have a small carbon and water footprint. Studies show that insect farming emits less carbon and methane gas than large livestock like cattle and pigs. Much less water is needed to produce the same amount of protein.
Insects use feed more efficiently than other sources of animal protein. Farming them could be a new source of jobs and income.
We have been involved in a project to promote the integrated use of insects as food in urban areas in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Our project works on the edible insect value chain and discovered that the seasonal supply of insects and poor hygiene standards made the market unstable and unattractive to consumers. Traders sold insects in an informal setting and had little interaction with farmers.
We carried out training among farmers, traders, municipalities and others with an interest in this emerging industry.
The training included how to handle and process insects after they were harvested, food safety along the value chain and farming crickets (Acheta domesticus and Gryllus bumaculatus).
The trainees have learnt how to rear and sell insects better and have become more aware of what a sustainable value chain should look like. For example, market facilities have to be clean and there must be a steady supply of insects. The training also created awareness of the need to farm insects rather than catching them in the wild. Catching insects can reduce insect populations dramatically when consumption increases. And there are no food safety standards for wild insects.
Together with the urban council in the town of Chinhoyi in Zimbabwe, we built a model market structure where traders are selling their insects. Traders are selling some of the most popular edible insects; wild harvested mopani worms (Gonimbrasia belina), termites (Macrotermes natalensis) and wild harvested crickets. Farmers are still building stocks of farmed crickets, but the plan is to sell farmed crickets in the near future. It is still too early to see the impact but one notable improvement is hygiene.
The market has also helped women traders, who are the main group selling insects there. They have become more organised about their business.
Insects are highly nutritious and contain protein, fat and energy in proportions similar to grains, vegetables and seeds. They are rich in macro minerals like calcium, sodium and magnesium and micro minerals like zinc, manganese, iron and copper, all of which should be part of a healthy diet.
In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, these minerals come from fruits and vegetables, most of which are farmed seasonally. Edible insects could supply these minerals during seasons where there is less fruit and vegetable production. They contain essential amino acids such as threonine, cysteine, valine, methionine and isoleucine.
The recommended daily minimum intake of amino acids can be consumed by eating just 100g of the edible stink bug (Encosternum delegorguei), for example.
Research is required so that policy makers and those involved in the sector – farmers, processes, marketers and consumers – can make evidence-based decisions. This must happen across disciplines. Researchers should work with farmers and people in business to foster skills, innovation and enterprise. For example, they could develop business cases and scenarios.
Policy makers must understand that the sector is unique. Edible insects have not been categorised under any agricultural sub-sector such as crop or animal farming. On the African continent, they have not previously been farmed and treated as a commodity. That is why it would be helpful to establish and coordinate platforms such as meetings, workshops, exhibitions, magazines and websites.
Robert Musundire is an associate professor of entomology in the Department of Crop Science and Post-Harvest Technology at Chinhoyi University of Technology
Anneli Sundin is a communicator from Stockholm Environment Institute
Republished from Groundup. org.za
Insects are nutritious and contain protein, fat and energy