By JOANNA DETZ/eco.org RI News staff
PROVIDENCE
— The little girl in the green hat wouldn’t eat one. No way, she said. Her Mom
thought about for a bit, but she chickened out at the last minute.
Finally,
Chrissy Teck, marketing manager at Fertile Underground
Grocery, who had already eaten one earlier, popped another in her mouth
with a smile. In one bite, the toasted cricket was gone. Down the hatch.
On a
recent Tuesday evening, a small group was forming at the sample tables at
Fertile Underground during the store’s “Alternative Protein Night.” Behind one
table, fielding questions from curious shoppers, sat David Gracer, owner
of Small Stock Foods and
longtime proponent of entomophagy, or insect consumption.
The
toasted crickets heaped in the plastic container in front of Gracer weren’t
exactly going quickly. People seemed more interested in trying samples of the
store-made vegan sausage at the next table.
“The concept of eating bugs freaks people out so much. They are incapable of challenging their assumptions,” Gracer said.
Through
public engagements such as this one, Gracer hopes to change people’s misgivings
about eating insects. An English teacher at Community College of Rhode
Island, Gracer, who could be described as an extreme eater — he claimed to have
eaten coyote a week ago — runs Small Stock in his spare time.
In addition to giving talks and hosting insect tastings, he also fills roughly five sale orders a week, mostly of crickets.
In addition to giving talks and hosting insect tastings, he also fills roughly five sale orders a week, mostly of crickets.
Gracer’s
main argument for consuming insects is environmental.
He is
not the only one making this argument. A policy paper presented to the U.N.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) several years ago focused attention on
the cultivation of insects for food.
According to professor Arnold van Huis, an entomologist at
Wageningen University in the Netherlands, “The world population will grow ...
to 9 billion by 2050, and we know people are consuming more meat. Twenty years
ago the average was 44 pounds [per person, per year]; it is now 110 pounds and
will be 176 pounds in 20 years. If we continue like this we will need another
Earth."
Insects,
on the other hand, require little water and few resources to cultivate.
According to van Huis, breeding commonly eaten insects such as locusts,
crickets and mealworms, emits 10 times less methane than livestock. Insects
also produce 300 times less nitrous oxide — also a warming gas — and much less
ammonia, a pollutant produced by pig and poultry farming.
And,
insects pack a protein punch. In their dried form, grasshoppers may contain up
to 60 percent protein.
Gracer’s
own fascination with entomophagy began in 1999, when he received some flavored
mealworm snacks for his birthday. This piqued his curiosity, and his
discoveries drove him to promote insects as a part of a healthy, sustainable
diet. He has given radio interviews and even appeared on "The Colbert
Report" in 2008. (For the record, Colbert declined to sample
Gracer’s wares.)
At
Fertile Underground, the pre-dinner crowd was filling the store, and the
vegetarian ecoRI News reporter interviewing Gracer and cataloging customers’
reactions to his sample tray decided to try a cricket herself, out of a sense
journalistic duty — and sheer curiosity.
The
mouthfeel was shatteringly crunchy, like a potato chip, but a little splintery.
The flavor was pleasantly salty and nutty. Gracer said he had seasoned the
crickets with some celery salt. Not bad. Intriguing enough to merit trying
another.
And
while this ecoRI News reporter may be a convert, judging from the reactions of
customers at Fertile Underground, most Americans have a lot of psychological
hurdles to overcome before they accept insects as food.
At the
cash register, the cashier asked a woman buying eggs if she had tried a bug.
She replied with a gross-out face that she couldn’t do it.
“Well,
enjoy your baby chicken embryos,” the cashier said with a smile.