Why Eat Insects?
Why Not Eat Insects?
It’s cheeky to answer a question with a question, but seriously - why not? For every reason you may think you don’t want to eat insects, I can think of many reasons why billions of people in 80% of the world’s nations enjoys them on a regular basis. Keep reading!
📸: Tasting after a lecture - San Diego State University (2019)
Eating Insects is Delicious!
If you’re already familiar with eating insects, you know how absolutely delicious they can be! If the idea is foreign to you, it may be analogous to eating a raw onion. Once you understand how to slice and cook an onion, you have a better appreciation of its flavor and functionality.
📸: Welcoming Reception at Insects to Feed the World - Singapore, with chefs and students from Nanyang Polytechnic (2024)
New Ingredients to have fun!
There are over two thousand species of edible insects with wildly different flavor profiles, textures, and functionality. They can taste wildly different when fried, boiled, baked, fermented, or roasted. We just have to learn how to utilize them as an ingredient. The only thing limiting us—is our own imagination.
📸: Edible insects at Eating Insects Athens - University of Georgia at Athens (2018)
Billions of people around the world enjoy them!
Oh, I already said that, but I think it’s worth noting (again).
📸: Bug Banquet at Insects to Feed the World - Quebec City (2022)
Clean and Safe
Most all of our insects (we make exceptions during expeditions or when we forage) are processed at a certified facility with HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) plans and FDA Registration Numbers.
📸: Seven Course Tasting and insect ingredients (2022)
Super nutritious
It’s hard to generalize the nutrition of insects as a whole considering great variances between species, and how they were reared and processed. But if we were to take the humble cricket - potentially the gateway bug for many newcomers - it has between 50-80% protein by weight, all nine essential amino acids, vitamin b12, zinc, magnesium, potassium, and prebiotic chitin. It is literally a super food!
📸: Mis en place for my locust bibimbap (2020)
Edible Insects are sustainable!
Minimum input for maximum output. Would you rather use two thousand gallons of water or one gallon of water for a pound of protein? It takes a fraction of the resources to produce the equivalent amount of insect protein - water, feed, land - and creates a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions as well.
📸: Assortment of edible insects I put together (2019)
Try something new!
One of the greatest joys I have in my work is sharing my curiosity and great joy in learning something new! I love being a disruptor because there is great purpose to my work - the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are among my guiding principles and inspiration.
Encouraging people to think differently, and seeing people’s opinion of edible insects change after my lecture or tasting is truly rewarding.
📸: Tasting at New York Hall of Science (2019)
Have FUN!
I’ll be totally freaking honest with you - eating insects are super fun! And I love having fun, creating memorable moments, brainstorming solutions, connecting communities, building trust, rejecting nihilism, exploring curiosity, and amplifying solutions with great love, hope, and optimism.
📸: Bug Bowl at Spring Fest with Food Science students - Purdue University (2019)
More pics, videos, ideas, and FUN coming!
I’ll make you one promise—I’ll be entirely genuine and honest with you. I will never lie, I will share both my successes and failures, and will always be inclusive.
📸: took this portrait to promote a college tour (2023)