Insects:
The new superfood?

Let’s start with a thought experiment. Imagine that scientists had discovered a new fruit, deep in the rainforest, with twice the protein of beef, twice the iron of spinach, 1.6 times the calcium you’d find in meat and seven times more vitamin B12 than a similar-sized serving of salmon.

This adaptable wonderfruit can be ground into a powder to use in baking, smoothies and more, and it has a very light taste that offends no-one. You wouldn’t have to eat much of it to feel full, and you could use it as a supplement to a vegan diet to provide the minerals and vitamins that are often lacking. Early trials suggest that it might even help fight Alzheimer’s, ageing and weight gain, and reduce inflammation and oxidative stress.

This magic fruit is sustainable to produce, creating less waste and using far fewer resources to make than in traditional farming, and could be grown anywhere, reducing transport and transit emissions.

This high-in-protein, high-in-minerals wonderfruit could not only feed humans but also sheep, pigs and cows. It means that you can reduce the deforestation of Latin America’s rainforests by as much as 20%, as they no longer need to be razed to grow the soya currently used in animal feed.

The only trouble is, this wonderfruit isn’t a fruit at all.

It’s an insect.

“We tend not to use the word insects when we talk about what we do – we talk about edible crickets instead. It sounds better,” said Stefan Järlhem, co-founder of Global Bugs, a firm farming crickets for food in Thailand, which recently became part of Altimate Nutrition.

He’s right of course: the way that we talk about food is everything. As soon as the idea lands that you might have to eat a creepy crawly, something changes. As humans, we have an innate set of responses to things that scuttle and for many of us, there is an in-built sense of revulsion around anything that could be perceived as dangerous. The idea of insects crawling all over rotting food is one primal indicator that it could poison you.

But while insect snacks are a novelty for many western palates, insects are, of course, a staple, protein-rich menu item in countries around the world, including Mexico, Brazil, Ghana and China, where the silkworm is considered a delicacy. Indigenous Australians have traditionally eaten as many as 60 different insect species, including the witchetty grub, while in Cambodia, the fried tarantula is eaten regularly – a dish that tastes, so they say, similar to a soft-shelled crab. Fine dining restaurants have also regularly served guests everything from ants to butterflies on their experimental menus.

“The main factor hindering the growth of insects as food is that disgust factor,” said Järlhem. “It’s getting better, but it does not help when the media always has to show ugly pictures of people eating whole crickets. In reality, the business is quite different.”

Järlhem’s business focuses on selling cricket powder as an ingredient. The powder has all the benefits as described, in terms of nutritional profile, but none of the arms, legs and eyes that might turn your stomach. In short, it’s the path forward for the industry: all of the benefits, none of the squirm factor.

At present, the main insects farmed commercially for Western tastes are crickets, black soldier flies, house flies, mealworms and silk worms. Field crickets, in particular, are being hailed as the new farm animals: fried and ground to a powder, they have barely any flavour and can be added to products including protein bars, chips and cereals to offer a nutrient boost.

Some of Europe’s leading consumer insect-as-food brands were inspired by African food traditions. At Eat Grub in London, Shami Radia, one of the cofounders, discovered roasted termites while working at a water charity in Malawi and was prompted to see if it might work in the UK. His firm’s energy bars and powders powered by crickets have been stocked in Sainsbury’s, the UK’s first supermarket to stock insect-based products.

Montreal-based food business Nääk has zeroed in on one of the biggest unique selling points of the superfood: its high protein content. Founded by two triathletes, the company has created a range of energy bars with chefs and sports nutritionists that use crickets as a protein source. There’s barely a mention of the six-legged creatures on the packaging apart from in the small print – and that’s all by design, of course.

Grégoire Guyot, who leads product innovation at Nääk, says that the company learned it all through experience. “From 2016-2019, we talked almost exclusively about insects,” he said. “But then we changed our approach. Our technique now is to have customers taste the products without knowing there are insects in it. Most of them are surprised and think it’s good.”

Over time, the company has created new flavors and figured out what pairs best with cricket – chocolate, apparently, is a particularly good foil for it. The focus is always on athletes, and how this nutrient-rich option can help them. Guyot knows which vitamins athletes on vegetarian and vegan diets are looking for. “They can find them in what we make,” he says.

The high protein content of crickets opens the door to a whole new category of diet, one that Stefan Järlhem at Global Bugs calls entovegan: a vegan diet, plus insects. We’ve got vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians and flexitarians, so why not entovegans?

“If you’re on a vegan diet, it is hard to get enough vitamin B12,” said Järlhem. His company works with food companies to create vegan and plant-based dishes including plant-based meatballs with cricket powder, and risotto with cricket balls, that can satisfy a different kind of diet. For those who choose veganism for environmental reasons, these options could be a good nutritional solution. His firm is currently investing heavily in research and development, working with a university in Singapore to continue early-stage research into how a diet rich in crickets might affect Alzheimer’s, weight gain and aging.

At Nääk, the focus is on regulatory issues and finding ways to distribute to the world.

“Regulation drives innovation,” said Guyot. “When you make a product, you want to sell it everywhere. With changing regulations in Europe, we can now start to do that.“

The company is also expanding to provide specific products to support athletes with preparation and recovery pre- and post- extreme events, all powered by crickets.

The wider food industry continues to take the area seriously. According to the UKrestaurant site Square Meal, insect eating is one of the hottest food trends of 2024. And research firm Mintel has been tracking the insects-as-food trend for a decade, as companies all over the world have been developing food products from dried insects from flour to cereal bars, muesli, frozen meals and more, ready to take their place on supermarket shelves and kick start a food revolution.

Add to this lines of dog and cat food and farm animal feeds that also capitalize on the benefits of the nutrients, all gained in small intensely farmed factories with a circular economy bent. If we can collectively get over the squirm factor and regulations can keep pace, maybe there will be a point in the future where we’ll all have butterflies – and other insects – in our stomachs.

Insect snacks: The taste test

With all this evidence stacking up, the time has come to try some insects for myself. On my tasting plate: a whole cricket from Jimini’s, an apple and cinnamon protein bar from (sadly now defunct) Hey Planet, and some Small Giants cracker bites made from cricket flour, tomato and oregano. But for all the research I’ve done, eating insects still makes me feel uncomfortable.

First up: the cricket. It’s nearly 5cm long, with eyes, a head, a sectioned abdomen, wings and legs. It’s brown and sheeny, dehydrated, uncooked and unseasoned. “At least it’s dead,” I tell myself. I put it in my mouth all in one go and crunch it up. It’s not unpleasant – it reduces to a powder quickly, and I’m left with an aftertaste that reminds me of sawdust. I am not about to eat a handful of them, but I could eat one again. Rating: 1/5

Then the protein bar. It’s completely normal looking and it tastes strongly of cinnamon. I honestly can’t find anything to complain about here. There’s no residual flavor of anything beyond apple and cinnamon. I’d do it again. Rating: 4/5

Finally, the crackers. These square chips are crisp and crunchy with a strong flavor of tomato and oregano. No hint of any kind of bug at all. If you served these out of their packet at a party nobody would know. Rating: 3/5

What have I learned? You can mask the cricket powder very easily in protein bars and crackers – nobody needs to know the difference. Note though, that if you’re allergic to crustaceans, you might also be allergic to insects as they are from the same family.

Eating a whole cricket is a different matter – I still don’t really want to put something with six legs in my mouth! But as someone always looking for easy ways to be sustainable, I will be looking out for more products with insect proteins in the future.

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