Cricket pies, fried grasshoppers and mealworm quiche: Welcome to the new culinary delights. Or so hopes Arnold van Huis, an entomology professor in Wageningen, the Netherlands. Van Huis is working to bring a range of entomological appetizers to the market.
Marco Visscher: Why should we eat insects?
Arnold van Huis: While the world population is growing and our global wealth is advancing, meat consumption is rising dramatically. Currently, 70 percent of farmland is being used for meat production. If this trend continues, it will prove unsustainable. Moreover, livestock is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and nitrous oxide. Insects have a much lower environmental burden, while their nutritional value measures up to chicken or beef.
Visscher: Don't they taste awful?
van Huis: That depends on how you prepare the dish. I'm not so wild about cakes made using crushed flies from East Africa--a couple of which I have at home -- but sautéed crickets in a warm chocolate dip make a great snack."
Visscher: Isn't it primitive to eat insects?
van Huis: It's quite normal for most of the world. In tropical countries, people don't eat caterpillars, beetle larvae, grasshoppers and termites because they don't have a choice but because they taste good. Plus insects are high in protein and have essential fatty acids and important vitamins. Which is why food programs in developing countries should increase their focus on insects. Currently, vegetable consumption is emphasized, but it's much more efficient to get nutrients from animals. Because traditional meat is often too expensive, insects could be a very good alternative.
Visscher: Isn't the psychological barrier in the West simply too great?
van Huis: The first time you bite into a grasshopper might be a little 'hard to swallow.' But there are ways to handle this. Insects can be ground industrially so they're less recognizable, just as a filet doesn't really resemble a particular animal. There are some 1,400 edible insects, which can enrich and diversify our food supply.
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Four Recipes for an Insect-Rich Diet
Banana Worm BreadCompliments of
Iowa State University Entomology ClubIngredients:
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
2 bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts
2 eggs
1/4 cup dry-roasted army worms
Directions:
Mix together all ingredients. Bake in greased loaf pan at 350 degrees for about 1 hour.
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Mealworm Fried RiceCompliments of
Iowa State University Entomology ClubIngredients:
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. oil
3/4 c. water
1/4 c. chopped onions
4 tsp. soy sauce
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1 c. minute rice
1 c. cooked mealworms
Directions:
Scramble egg in a saucepan, stirring to break egg into pieces. Add water, soy sauce, garlic and onions. Bring to a boil. Stir in rice. Cover; remove from heat and let stand five minutes.
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Rootworm Beetle DipCompliments of
Iowa State University Entomology ClubIngredients:
2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons skim milk
1/2 cup reduced calorie mayonnaise
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon onion, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. dill weed
1 1/2 tsp. Beau Monde
1 cup dry-roasted rootworm beetles
Directions:
Blend first 3 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients and chill.
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Ant Brood Tacos
Compliments of
EatBug.comIngredients:
2 tablespoons butter or peanut oil
1/2 pound ant larvae and pupae
3 serrano chilies, raw, finely chopped
1 tomato, finely chopped
Pepper, to taste
Cumin, to taste
Oregano, to taste
1 handful cilantro, chopped
Taco shells, to serve
Directions:
Heat the butter or oil in a frying pan and fry the larvae or pupae. Add the chopped onions, chilies, and tomato, and season with salt. Sprinkle with ground pepper, cumin, and oregano, to taste. Serve in tacos and garnish with cilantro. (Not living in an area exceptionally prolific with ants, I have never been able to try this recipe. But it sounds perfectly delicious! I found it in 'Creepy Crawly Cuisine', an excellent recipe book.)
Well I am going to give my fish 'n chips and yummie........ And my friend
this one makes it logical why we should eat mud and things like that init?
"What if I told you," Joel Weinstock said, "there were countries where the doctors had never seen hay fever?"
It is another piece of evidence, another "aha" moment in the global medical mystery that Weinstock - the chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts-New England Medical Center - has narrowed down to one chief suspect: the worms.
Weinstock, 59, specializes in studying why immunological diseases - everything from hay fever and asthma to diabetes and multiple sclerosis - are on the rise in developed countries but remain relatively uncommon in undeveloped countries. He believes these diseases, many of which were almost unheard of 100 years ago, are because of changes in our environment, a lack of exposure to something. And he thinks that something may be the worms.
"We realized that one thing people always had was intestinal worms," he said. "But in the mid-20th century we started deworming children in developed countries. So we've developed a theory that perhaps deworming was helping these diseases."
This theory - which is currently being tested in laboratory trials on how parasitic worms, known as helminths, regulate response to disease - has earned Weinstock the title of "Best and Brightest" from Esquire magazine, which honored him in its recent "Genius Issue." The magazine hailed his theory as a glimpse into a "brand-new scientific revolution, a paradigm shift in the way we think about the human body."
The crux of that scientific revolution is a bit of role reversal. The parasites that we have been told to avoid - such as hookworm and pinworm - may be the good guys, while excessive hygiene may be the bad guy.
"I get about 5,000 e-mails a year from patients all over the world asking what to do," he said. "People know that something isn't right. They keep their kids in the cleanest environments and they get asthma. We get all of these things that were rare becoming common. And a lot of it comes down to hygiene. Excessive hygiene can potentially lead to disease."
The "hygiene hypothesis," which was first proposed nearly two decades ago, argues that aspects of cleanliness prevent the immune system from programming itself to fight off disease.
"The big question is what are those aspects? We don't want to go back to the standards of the 1800s," Weinstock said. "Public hygiene and cleanliness are very good for us, but removing ourselves entirely from our natural environment is bad for us. We need to figure out the aspects of dirt and exposure that are good for us and hopefully we can find a balance."
Weinstock, who ran a center for digestive diseases at the University of Iowa before arriving at Tufts-NEMC in 2005, said that being a researcher has always come naturally to him.
"I grew up in the space race. When other kids went to play sports, I went to the library to read about rocket motors. My friends and I loved to tinker. Research was my hobby then, and it hasn't gone away," he said.
He said he hopes his research will soon lead to helminths-based drug therapies and vaccines.
"Will people be afraid to take a worm pill?" he asked, acknowledging an obvious squeamishness. "I don't think so."
And while he is cautious about advising any of his desperate e-mailers until all of the facts are in, he is comfortable telling parents one thing.
"When people ask me what to do, I tell them to let their kids play in the dirt," he said.
"And it's OK if they don't wash their hands every time."
Hometown: Grew up in Detroit; lives in Weston.
Education: Earned a Bachelor of Science in biology from the University of Michigan in 1969, and graduated from the Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1973.
Family: Wife, Alison, is a nurse; daughter, Lisa, 24, works in community services; son Jeff, 21, is a junior at UMass-Amherst; son Andrew, 16, is a student at Weston High School.
Hobbies: Weinstock enjoys gardening and traveling, but says his research is his hobby. "It's not work," he says. "It's play. I love what I do."
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