Bugs, so what? (or the reason why westerners have lost their way)

“If food is not worth arguing about, it’s not worth eating” (Anthony Bourdain)

 

In the not so far distant past, most humans consumed insects as part of their normal diet along with all the other animals consumed today. When did western perception of consuming insects diverge from the rest of the world?

The perception of insects living in the dirt is probably where it started from. Things that live in the dirt are considered “dirty”. When the average wealth of an individual started to rise so did the perception that they are above eating things that live close to the ground. The strange fallacy is that other animals like pigs that live in the mud, and shellfish that clean the bottom of the sea floor are considered “clean.” Maybe the thought of diseases frightens people from eating insects. In reality, they should be more afraid of the diseases, like swine flu and mad cow disease, which are already affecting the food they’re eating now, as noted by Daniella Martin in her book Edible.

“Almost everything that’s disgusting is of animal origin, but cultures vary as to what they find disgusting,” affirmed Professor Paul Rozin, psychologist from the University of Pennsylvania, who conducted many researches on disgust. “We eat cheese – rotted milk – but other cultures find that disgusting. South Asian cultures eat fish sauce which is made of rotted fish, but they love it.”

Maybe the western repulsion for edible insects is strongly connected to their “look”? The visual appeal of a food item has quite an effect on what we perceive the taste will be like. What makes a squirrel cute, and a mouse disgusting? Butterflies are as “monstrous” as other insects, but we just look at their wings, which to us looks like modern art. If that is true, bats were not lucky (and for this they are killed in many countries, where – later on – the people realize that the mosquito population is growing out of control). Bats do not plan to harm humans, actually their excrement is among the best organic fertilizer in the world. Not even a series of positive movies was enough to redeem them from their “monstrous” image. Adding all these factors, the irrational approach that lead the western world to be the only place where insect-based food is scorned is just that: irrational.

The relevance of the visual aspects is also highlighted by Pat Crowley, founder of Chapul, in his stunning TED talk (he’s a fantastic presenter). Pat recall the story of sushi: raw fish was neglected in the west, until someone invented the California rolls, hiding the fish inside a ball of rice.

Prof. Rozin agree on this. “Disgust can be overcome either by positive exposures or by not thinking about the origin of the food. For instance, […] by making insects taste delicious or completely hiding their bugginess by grinding them up, like with cricket flour that is being marketed as the next big thing in protein powder”.

Cultural revolutions tend to become mainstream later on that is why now we eat smelly seaweed and raw squid. Get ready for the next delicatessen, way more sustainable and healthy that the salmon, (with all due respect for the sushi kitchen).