CityNews – It seems that the custom of eating insects, an eccentric and often booze-addled right of passage to tourists in Thailand wanting their bug-in-mouth shot, is becoming less of a dare-do-owt thing to do these days.
Scorpion and chips?
Bugs are good for you, said a UN report this year. They can help you lose weight, and are a great source of protein. Not only that, at a time when even the once leaders of the free world, the English, are reliant on food banks (500,000 people last year), and not since the Second World War has the Red Cross been handing out free grub in the UK, entomophagy – munching on bugs – might just be a lifesaver. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has already suggested that eating bugs could be the future of ‘food security’.
The farming and export of edible insects is already happening in Thailand. The National News Bureau reported this year that, “There is a plan for private companies to export canned Eri silkworms abroad.”
Bug farmers in Issan it was reported in June were already taking advantage of their Eri silkworm farms as word hit the street that exporting bugs might become a thing of the future. The Faculty of Agriculture, Knon Kaen University, have started developing better ways to harvest and breed bugs for when they become a speciality at home and abroad, it was reported.
Fried worms in Chiang Mai
On October 14th an article in The Guardian revealed how a chocolate maker in Nancy, France, Sylvain Musquar, has started adding another ingredient to his posh truffles and dusted blocks of choc: worms and crickets. Sacreblue!
The boxes of chocolates topped with gilded worms and crickets will set you back about 30 US dollars. Starving in Leeds, high on Sukhumvit, or knocking back chocolate at the ambassador’s reception, bugs might just become a staple in your future diet.