Though insects could provide health benefits and are considered delicacies in many places around the globe, it would take a lot of convincing to get people in the Western world to give them a try.

Bugs and filtered urine are both healthy and environmentally friendly, according to an Aug. 23 Wired Science article.

The article cited two examples of healthy insects. Crickets are very high in calcium and caterpillars are high in iron, thiamin and riboflavin. If people farmed and consumed insects, it would decrease hunger and demands on the environment from meat production, according to the article.

Eating insects is not unheard of, Peter Castro, associate professor of anthropology in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, said in an email.

“What people are supposed to eat or not eat changes in time, and can also change according to situations,” Castro said.

Ancient Romans and other European societies ate beetle larvae as a delicacy, and Castro said he has met Kenyan children who enjoy raw termite larvae because they taste sweet.

“Certain foods, and I suspect that insects might fall in this class in the West, were essentially ‘famine foods’ — considered undesirable during normal times, but eaten in times of shortage when preferred foods were not easily available,” he said.

Hans Peter Schmitz, associate professor of political science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, also said it is possible for foods like insects to become a part of American diets.

Getting people to eat insects will require educating them and showing them why it is important, as well as providing some kind of incentive, Schmitz said.

People would need to be convinced slowly at first, but once a large number of people followed the trend, getting the rest of the population to follow suit would be easy, he said.

One possible way of introducing insects into our diets is by mixing them in burgers, and slowly raising the insect percentage, Schmitz said.

“Typically these kinds of things happen because there is some major watershed or external shock,” Schmitz said. “At this point, we don’t have any of these.” 

Leanna Garfield, a sophomore magazine journalism major, said people eat food not because of its taste or nutrition, but because of how it looks, and therefore wouldn’t eat insects.

“I don’t think Western culture likes to see an insect black or brown or slimy. We have this perception that it’s been in dirty places,” Garfield said. “In Western culture, when you see a bug crawling around, you’re immediate reaction is ‘Ew, oh my God kill it.’”

Garfield said she would eat insects if they were disguised as something else.

Other students at SU are more open to trying the delicacies of other cultures. Amy Tatnall, a senior English and textual studies and television, radio and film major, said she has traveled to some of the Eastern areas and has consequently been exposed to the idea of eating insects.

Tatnall said she would be willing to try insects, and thinks it is possible that others would be willing to do so, too.

If eating insects was presented as a healthy trend or celebrities started doing it, Tatnall said, American culture would probably follow suit.

Published on September 18, 2012 at 1:24 am

Contact Andrew: amfeld01@syr.edu