Save the planet; eat bugs

“Ugh, waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!”

This classic joke turns on a universally acknowledged truth in the Western world – that insects are disgusting. And that anything they touch is likewise contaminated.

If insects in our food are a problem, imagine our reaction if insects were the food. Would you eat a grasshopper kebab? Or maybe add mealworm crumble to your pasta sauce?

Are you up for supplementing your bread with cricket flour? Would you chow down on a can of mopane worms? Imagine running after flying termites for a family meal, or katydids to roast and sell at the farmer’s market.

This may sound strange, but the foodways of many people across the globe have always included insects. A tasty grasshopper treat is even mentioned in Scripture. Yet most people of European descent have never heard of this practice. Or, if they have, they see it as an exotic adventure fit only for risk-takers, or as the last recourse of the desperate.

Eating insects is so strange that some Bible commentators stumble on it. They suggest that the word “locusts” might refer to the fruit pods of “locust trees” in Israel. To them it was literally unthinkable that John the Baptist might eat real grasshoppers. The typical Western reaction to the idea of eating insects is “Eew, that’s disgusting!”

Foraging for grasshoppers

Our disgust of insects matters. It has subtle but serious consequences for nutrition, food justice and environmental sustainability. Insect disgust can blind us to wholesome and economically viable foods that are an important part of global food security. Insisting on shaping agricultural systems through Western eyes can remove local insect food products and destabilize local ecosystems. And it hinders our ability to share true hospitality with those who eat insects.

In Mali, West Africa, our colleague Florence Dunkel saw this firsthand. In an article we co-wrote for Agriculture and Human Values we described the village of Sanambele, where children were raised foraging for grasshoppers in the tall grasses beside the fields. They roasted and ate them, adding a vital and wholesome protein supplement to a mainly starchy diet. But recently, with the encouragement of Western agriculturalists, the village farmers switched from growing food crops for the family table to cotton as a cash crop for export. The chemical inputs needed to protect cotton contaminates the grasshoppers. Now parents discourage the children from foraging. As a result, protein-energy malnutrition is on the rise, and knowledge of grasshoppers as potential food is disappearing.

While the issues of sustainable farming are always complex, one subtle but powerful element in this story is the cost of the hidden bias of insect disgust.

Clean and unclean

Disgust is not necessarily a bad thing. This primary emotion protects us from contamination by toxins, bacteria or viruses, and other threats to our physical and social selves. But disgust is both learned and contagious. We are not born with insect disgust. And items or people that physically or even metaphorically touch a disgusting object become disgusting too: that fly contaminates the soup. Old Testament laws and practices focused on retaining purity and identity by avoiding contamination with the unclean, the disgusting. In a powerful story in Acts, the Holy Spirit challenges Peter to overcome the rules about clean and unclean foods in order to extend the hospitality of the new body of Christ to non-Jews. And, like Peter, when the cultural situation changes, we must be alert and ready to change our minds too.

Imagine, then, Western agricultural specialists arriving in Sanambele. The Malians, detecting an implicit bias, were reluctant to tell Western guests about their insect eating tradition. Our colleague worked with the people of Sanambele for 12 years. It was not until her Malian colleague mentioned eating grasshoppers in his home village, and Florence talked about promoting insect-eating at her U.S. university (Montana State) that the farmers finally began freely sharing stories of their own grasshopper-eating traditions. They certainly had not shared this information with the Western agriculturalists.

Another colleague was born in Eritrea. As a child he happily caught, roasted and ate locusts with the other children. But when his missionary parents returned to the U.S., they cautioned him not to mention eating insects to their supporters. Our international students are also often reluctant to admit to these practices. Even when we promote edible insect foods some will dismiss this as old-fashioned and a practice for their elders back in the village.

Tastebud bias

Western insect disgust has consequences. We overlook insects as potential food and make decisions that prevent the possibility of their inclusion even in regions that traditionally use them. And even more subtly, globalizing Western insect disgust means that we not only treat “insect-eaters” with pity rather than respect, but people who wish to engage with the West hide and therefore lose knowledge that could have been used to develop locally-sustainable agricultural practices.

Over the last two decades some researchers and entrepreneurs have seen the potential of insects as human food. The catchphrase is “insects to feed the world.” They are motivated by economics but also by the desire to produce more abundant and sustainable livestock. They are enhancing global food security by diversifying the traditional reliance on beef, chicken and pork. Many insect species are excellent sources of protein, fats, vitamins, minerals and fiber. They are efficient to raise and less likely to produce pathogens that are a risk to human health.

Beyond the disgust

Yet changing our hidden attitudes toward edible insect species is more than economics, more than fitting “mini-livestock” into a global food system. It is a hospitable thing to do. Overcoming insect disgust helps us see the vital roles that these alien-to-us species play in sustaining the potential for food abundance in our ecosystems. And it helps us to get beyond pitying or dehumanizing those who eat insects, moving us toward respect and a willingness to listen and learn from them.

This doesn’t mean you should eat the fly that accidentally lands in your soup! It does mean being open to the possibility that the bug in your soup is intentionally there to contribute to your nourishment and delight, a gesture of hospitality across cultural boundaries, and a way to celebrate God’s abundant provision through creation.