Eat the Beetles!: An Exploration into Our Conflicted Relationship with Insects

by David Waltner-Toews

  If Enterra fit into my general notion of feeds and farming, Ynsect, which bills itself “the insect company,” took me by surprise. Their headquarters, located in a secure building in a research park on the outskirts of Paris, represented quite a different narrative for those who see a glowing future for insects in Western societies. Ynsect is a biotech entrepreneur’s dream. Their website announces that “this one-of-a-kind technological solution combines industrial-scale insect farming with their transformation into useful molecules for the nutritional and green chemistry markets.” Ecologically motivated, perhaps, but this was not a script written by David Suzuki.

  I had arranged a meeting with Ynsect’s CEO, Antoine Hubert, who has an education in agricultural engineering and experience with managing the wastes from pulp mills, slaughterhouses, and the oil and gas industry. He had become interested in new technologies to reduce and recycle organic wastes, and, from that base, he worked with three others: Alexis Angot, Fabrice Berro, and Jean-Gabriel Levon. In 2011, the four founded Ynsect with the goal of developing what they called an insect bio-refinery. After a pilot study, they expanded their goals and their financial base.

  As we walked along the clean white hallways at Ynsect’s headquarters, and Hubert talked about their first big investors and their entry into the market — pet food — I recalled how my wife and I used to joke that when we were old, we could eat cat food, which is more carefully monitored for nutrient content than most foods targeted for human consumption. Having previously had some of my research funded by Mars, Inc., makers of Mars™ chocolate bars and pet foods, I am well aware of the kinds of money generated by pet food markets.

  Although in August of 2015 they were still at the “promising development” stage, Hubert explained that they were aiming to produce large volumes of reliable insect-based products, efficiently and at a competitive price. The intent was to develop a zero-waste process, using robotics, embedded sensors, and data derived from standardized research protocols. He showed me around the premises, which had been, until recently, part of a human genome lab: high security, proper airflows, locked doors. This was where they would do all their experiments on different genetic species, strains, feeds, and management. The image was of a clean, high-tech, futuristic company, about as “green” as any high-tech agri-food company could be.

  Hubert and his colleagues had calculated that, using their state-of-the-art technologies, they could produce 10,000 times more protein per hectare and use 100 times less water annually than if they were using other animals. Their feed inputs would be wastes from the agricultural and food industries. Their processes would be low-impact. Unlike other insect-based feed companies, like Enterra, who used flies, Ynsect had chosen to work with beetles, arguing that beetles had higher protein and lower ash content than flies; furthermore, they had higher chitin content, which could be used to create high-value chemicals and pharmaceuticals. As if heading off a question he knew was coming, he said that they had no interest in GMOs and used standard breeding and genetic selection procedures.

  I asked him about end products. The big markets right now, worth billions of dollars, he explained, were for high-quality, standardized feed inputs for pets, fish, and chickens, as well as other insect-based chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. They would later expand into human food ingredients. Working with a Singaporean investment company, Ynsect was expanding its reach globally, developing commercial farm “platforms” in Asia and North America as well as Europe. It was with the promise of these high returns on investment that they had been able to persuade venture capitalists to bring millions of Euros to the table. Still, because of EU regulations, they were restricted to pet foods — not a small market, but not where the long-term ecological and economic gains were going to be.

  Listening to his enthusiastic explanation of their vision, I wondered if Ynsect represented the transformative, disruptive, almost revolutionary force Hubert imagined it to be, or if it was something more reformational, a new way to think about inputs to the animal-feed and pharmaceutical industries. I wondered if there was a difference between these two ways of looking at bugs in the system. Maybe they could complement each other, leading to some sort of sustainable, convivial, eco-friendly version of Leon Trotsky’s permanent revolution.

  Before I left, I asked Hubert who they saw as their main competitors. Enterra Feed was right near the top of the list, along with AgriProtein, a South African company that, like Enterra, was focused on insect proteins for animal feeds. Like the other companies in this hilly landscape of rising and falling start-ups, AgriProtein cites both ecological and economic reasons for their focus, with a slight tilt in emphasis to the economic side. Their website, for instance, explicitly puts their business in the context of soaring prices for soy and fishmeal proteins.

  Given their very different approaches and geographic locations, I wondered why Enterra would be a competitor for Ynsect in Europe. EU regulations, Hubert answered. And astute business moves. While Ynsect was working with Singaporean investors, Enterra had come to Europe through the political side door — Switzerland.

  In June 2015, Enterra Feed sent out a press release announcing a joint venture with a company based in Switzerland, which is not an EU member. “We are very pleased to be working with Entomeal to expand commercial operations into Europe,” said Enterra CEO Brad Marchant. “Entomeal is already well advanced in the use of black soldier fly technology to convert waste food into valuable feed ingredients and their founders have proven track records in business and the feed industry. Our world-leading technology, combined with their local expertise through this joint venture will verify and catalyze Enterra’s growth into the region.”

  This joint venture would be restricted to the small Swiss market, however, until the EU regulations were rewritten. I’ll come back to those regulations in a later chapter, as they are likely to strongly influence the shape and direction of the insects-as-food-and-feed movement for the near future.

  In October 2015, Hubert announced that Ynsect had developed a feed from yellow mealworms (Tenebrio molitor). In clinical trials, the new feed improved FCR such that fish weights increased 30 percent on the same feed inputs. The new feed, they announced, could completely replace fishmeal for juvenile salmonids. If it were introduced in a big way, and the new feed performed as well the trials suggested they would, this could provide some relief for the wild fish populations now being ground up to feed their farmed cousins.

  Some might see companies like Ynsect as being more sustaining than disruptive. Are they revolutionizing the way we produce and distribute food, or are they simply taking Cahill’s argument to heart and co-opting it, giving it a slight twist so that it serves to strengthen global agriculture as we currently think of it? Is this distinction meaningful as we face an uncertain future in a rapidly changing, perpetually self-disrupting world? Perhaps sustainable food security is best served by a diverse, jostling web of householders in Laos, high-tech business in France, managed mopane forests in southern Africa, intensive palm weevil producers in Uganda, family farms growing crickets for the North American market, and corporate waste processors producing feed for aquaculture.

  A COOK WITH KALEIDOSCOPE EYES

  Insects on the Menu

  I wanna be your flan.

  The Insect Cookbook: Food for a Sustainable Planet, published in 2014, showcases examples of how recipes from Peru, China, Mexico, and Japan could be adapted to European culinary imaginations. In one of the introductory sections, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan wondered if, a decade from 2014, Thailand would be shipping insects to Europe and elsewhere, the way Argentina and Australia shipped beef. The recipes in the book range from guacamole, chocolate cupcakes, and pizza, to Hopper Kebabs, Bitterbug Bites, and Crickety Kale Salad. In some recipes, the bugs blend in so that finding them becomes a game of Where’s Waldo? In other dishes, they are front and center, their multifaceted eyes staring out in un
comprehending blankness. Beetles for every occasion and every taste. One cannot fault the authors for lack of imagination. The endorsements are enthusiastic, the explanations clear, and the recipes attractive. And yet, in the memorable words of Shakespeare, methinks the lady doth protest too much. Can enthusiasm and colorful recipes really carry entomophagy into the mainstream?

  In 2012, an incident involving Starbucks suggested that insects’ path into non-bug-eating kitchens would require something more than just interesting recipes. That year, the coffee shop chain revealed that the red coloring in its Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino was derived from cochineal insects (Dactylopius coccus), causing a frenzied outcry from many of its customers. Some of the objections came from vegans. Some objected for religious reasons, arguing that cochineal insects were not kosher, an argument that creates some interesting dilemmas for scientifically minded Jews. In the late 1920s, Israeli entomologist F.S. Bodenheimer led a field investigation into the nature of the so-called manna, which kept the Israelites going in the desert for forty years. His conclusion, that “there is not the slightest doubt that the producer of this manna is an aphid,” went quickly from being esoteric research to making global headlines. Aphids are in the same sub-order as cochineal scale insects, which produce the rich red dye that kept the Aztec and Spanish rulers in royal crimson and later caused so much trouble for Starbucks. Not being considered kosher, it raises the question as to whether the Israeli Yahweh was playing a joke, offering up as nourishment an insect that the people were strictly forbidden to eat. Or maybe the Fire that first announced itself to be a nameless “I am that I am” was ambivalent about all those rules and the attitudes they reflected.

  Some Frappuccino drinkers objected less for reasons of offended morality, however, than because they preferred their drinks (served in fossil fuel–derived plastic containers) to be free of — like, ewww, gross — things made from bugs.

  Whatever their motivation, all of these objections ignored the fact that the ground coffee itself probably contained many more insect parts than the Frappuccino. Most federal agencies that regulate food safety regard insects in food as an aesthetic issue and allow measurable but not visually detectable levels of insect parts in all foods.

  When I started working on this book in the spring of 2015, restaurants advertising insects on the menu and start-up companies raising and marketing insects and insect-based products seemed to be popping up everywhere. Entomophagy was a culinary tsunami that had begun in small tide pools throughout the Global South, and a few places in Europe, and was now sweeping the world. Soon, however, even as new ideas, innovative crowd-funding, and prize-winning initiatives appeared, just as many would disappear, or no longer have items available.

  In 2008, Meeru Dhalwala, co-owner and chef of celebrated Vancouver Indo-Canadian restaurants Vij’s and Rangoli, gave crickets a “soft” entrance onto her menu by grinding them up and making cricket paratha. Three years later she “took the training wheels off” (her words) and advertised cricket-topped pizza. In an interview with the online journal The Tyee, she made crickets sound mouth-wateringly tasty, describing them as having “a sort of grassy, earthy, almost nutty, truffle-like flavour.”91

  I prefer to roast them, because it keeps them crispy. Crickets are gentle and have a delicate texture, so I want to use as little oil as possible. It depends on how you cook it. When cooked whole, they’re like nuts in terms of texture, and need to be cooked as such. . . .

  When I cook, I visualize. When you don’t know what to do with it, find a starting point. Stay anchored to a base flavour. For me, when it comes to food, my anchor is where my food comes from, and then from there I try to match it with my personal repertoire of spices. That for me is the most natural way of cooking. Keep anchored to the base flavours and then adapt it to your own flavour preference or palate.

  Try roasting or sautéing them and test out flavours. I love cumin and cilantro and garlic with my crickets. Test out what works for you.

  With that sort of PR, how could anyone not love crickets on the menu? I wrote to Dhalwala asking about her experience with introducing insects to the menu and expressing my desire to come to Vancouver and try her fare. She replied that they had temporarily pulled insect-based items from the menu. As part of the reason for this action, she cited the kinds of cultural dilemmas being faced around the world as a corporatized food culture invades and displaces traditional fare:

  The Indian community has been the most difficult in terms of introducing crickets — many find it embarrassing and ‘dirty.’ I had a much more popular response in Seattle than in Vancouver because I had a much younger Indian crowd who had been in the US for quite some time. The majority of the Indians working for Amazon who were in the US on temporary two-year work permits were aghast that I would serve crickets at an Indian restaurant, but many were also aghast that I didn’t have a cheap $6.99 all you can eat buffet.

  The media response in both Vancouver and Seattle was great. The hard part is getting customers to order the dish. This is definitely a new food for a younger crowd.

  In follow-up emails and interviews with the media, Dhalwala also underscored the challenges of incorporating environmental and sustainability issues into a restaurant menu. Many customers are looking for a particular curry dish, and are less interested in how it was sourced. Wild-caught crickets could well have pesticide residues, and organic farmed crickets are difficult to find. These issues are not at all unique to Indian restaurants or people from India. I grew up eating the cabbage borscht, rollkuchen, verenicke,92 and sausages that my parents had eaten in the Ukraine; where the ingredients were grown was less important than the “authenticity” of the dish. As a person living in a temperate zone with a long winter, I am constantly running into recipes that claim to be “healthy” and “sustainable” but that call for “fresh, organic” ingredients that would only be available in Mexico or California.

  The restaurant story from Vancouver offers a cautionary tale, reminding us that enthusiasm alone won’t carry the entomophagical day and that culinary shifts are embedded in complex cultural perspectives and trends that transcend technology transfer.

  Where were the inroads being made that might indicate that entomophagy was following sushi’s path into global cuisine? Several restaurants have made big entomophagical splashes on the internet windscreens, and as I investigated further, it was obvious that I could spend my life wandering the world sampling bugs cooked up in a variety of tasty ways. Maybe, if I were forty years younger, single, and independently wealthy, I would try that route, but I am none of those. I had read the headlines about Noma, a trend-setting gourmet restaurant based in Denmark: “World’s Best Restaurant Noma Brings Insects Back Onto the Plate” (Forbes), and “Chef René Redzepi Believes Insects Will Solve the World’s Food Problems” (Eater). Noma, however, led by what one New York Times reviewer called the “godfather of the New Nordic movement,” was charging prices that were trend-setting in ways that, were I to sample their cuisine, would require me to remortgage my house and plan my dinners a couple of years in advance.

  San Francisco’s Don Bugito describes itself as “an edible insect street food project.” Their website announces that they “offer rather unusual but tasty creative foods inspired by Mexican pre-Hispanic and contemporary cuisine with locally sourced ingredients.”

  A restaurant review by Silvia Killingsworth in the August 24, 2015, issue of the New Yorker describes another Mexican-derived insect dish, the guacamole at the “Black Ant, in the East Village.” According to the report, the house guacamole may include garbanzo beans, fried corn, orange slices, jicama, radishes, and even cheese. “But,” says Ms. Killingsworth, “it is always finished with ants. The garnish, to be precise, is sal de hormiga, or salt with ground-up chicatanas — large, winged leaf-cutter ants, harvested once a year, in the Mexican region of Oaxaca. The ants taste somewhere between nutty and buttery, with a chemical tang, and lend the salt a bit of
umami.”93 Killingsworth also remarks on the mixed messaging delivered by the art on display at the Black Ant, featuring, for instance, Salvador Dali’s “repulsive ants.”

  Online, Billy Kwong Restaurant in Sydney, Australia, sounded like an Aussie version of the Black Ant. According to a 2013 interview, chef Kylie Kwong was enthusiastic about integrating varied and delicious insect dishes into the restaurant’s eco-friendly Australian-Chinese cuisine. In that interview, which emphasized Kwong’s journey from entomophobe to champion of insects as a sustainable and delicious food source, she said that “they’re all an integral part of the Billy Kwong menu now.”94

  I visited Billy Kwong two years after that interview, on a warm Tuesday evening in October. The darkly lit place was bustling: young, beautiful, ever warm and friendly waiters, bartenders, and various other workers slipped and danced smoothly past each other, among patrons, into and out of the wine cellar and the bar, past the open kitchen, never colliding — a ballet of black-clad grace, food, and alcohol. The atmosphere was warm and friendly, coziness without claustrophobia, inclusiveness without intrusion. The menu announced, “Where possible we try to use sustainable organic, biodynamic and locally sourced produce.”

  The Chinese-fusion dishes included beef, prawns, pork, the usual rice and eggs, and some “Australian native greens” I hadn’t seen before, such as Warrigal Greens and Saltbush. Insects were nowhere on the menu.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the waitress responded to my query about the bugs. “We don’t have any insect dishes right now. Is there something else you would like?”

  I was persistent, annoyingly so, and the waitress finally said she would go check with the chef. In the meantime, would I like a drink? After I had a couple of gin and tonics and made some increasingly insistent queries, the waitress returned with what she described as “fantastic news”: the chef would make me crispy fried wonton and sweet chili sauce with crickets.