Overcoming Inhibitions

In a world of growing food scarcity, where a small fraction of humankind eats regularly and well, while a far greater number of people eat on a marginal basis, and a larger still proportion face hunger and starvation, we look for ways that might lead us to re-balancing this unfortunate equation. People in industrialized, wealthy nations eat too well.

We've become accustomed to eating whenever we want to, whether or not we're hungry, and we invest our eating habits in unhealthy choices. As a result, the population of overweight and obese people increases, while the underprivileged struggle with chronic malnutrition and starvation. We're addicted to 'expensive' types of foods, like animal-derived products that use a preponderance of grain to reach maturity.

To obtain one kilogram of beef, cattle is raised on immense land areas, fed huge kilos of fodder, require large amounts of water, before they're ready for slaughter. The amount of food and energy it takes to produce a small portion of meat for a relatively small number of privileged eaters, could feed a vastly larger army of people eating the grain as a finished product.

We're told time and again that there are alternatives. Other sources of animal protein that we value, including the fish of the seas. And we've misused those resources abysmally to the point where fisheries world-wide are collapsing. While we're fishing for the choice types, we're wasting the less palatable, but still protein-wise fish as throwaways.

And ever growing urban centres are narrowing our capabilities to retain prime agricultural lands. International commerce in food stuffs have further aggravated the situation by diminishing the return for home-grown food products, using the developing countries' products grown especially for export, and competing with cheaper labour in a no-choice labour market, for indigenous products.

Now, with steadily rising food prices, some of it occasioned by the rising costs of energy, along with the need to pay better wages to agricultural workers in some more fortunate parts of the world - exacerbated by a growing number of people in places like India and China earning more and expecting to be able to eat 'better' in terms of more energy-using products, there's a growing food scarcity.

From time to time we read about delicacies enjoyed in other countries, where people make practical use of the protein available to them in their particular geographies. In the developed world it isn't taken as a given that the insect world can offer human beings a sound food source. Yet no matter where anyone lives on the globe there are insects in abundance and some, from grubs and larvae to beetles and spiders, are reputed to offer alternatives to the familiar sources.

There are about a thousand insects the world over considered to be edible. It's said that ants and termites alone represent about one-third of the animal biomass in the tropics. Insect populations are huge, vastly overshadowing the presence of mere human beings. People think of insects, for the most part, as pests, to be endured. Or to protect ourselves from. And in many instances that's quite correct, but then again, not entirely.

Taking into account the presence of trillions upon trillions of various types of insects occupying every square metre of space on this Globe, it can be safely assumed that they far outnumber humans - let alone other animals - in terms of populations. And put in total overall weight on the ecosystem, as well. They're there in vast abundance, and we could, if we had to, if we put our mind to it, if we overcame the 'ick!' factor, accustom ourselves to using them.

Take, for example, Shoichi Uchiyama, a Japanese chef who has recently published a new cookbook: 'Enjoying Bug-eating Recipes'. Um, yes. Yes indeed. "Domestic spiders are large at this time of year and the females are carrying their young in their stomachs, so they're both tasty and healthy", Mr. Uchiyama declares. I do declare, the thought never entered my mind to feast on pregnant spiders. I have thought of them as extremely fascinating, but not as potential meals.

But spiders, claims Mr. Uchiyama, gently boiled and served up on a bed of rice are quite wonderful, the flesh soft and somewhat like simmered soy beans. So, do I like soy beans? Uh, not exactly, but one could, needless to say, develop a taste.

Pure protein. MMMMmmmm!