Everyone in Thailand loves to eat, and usually we decide about what foods we enjoy most when we are quite young. It is difficult to change a person’s tastes in food, or make them decide they like what they have always hated. So, it is unlikely that people who dislike the smell of durian will ever learn to like this fruit, no matter how many times other people who enjoy it praise its flavor. A book newly acquired by the Thammasat University Libraries deals seriously and in a scholarly fashion with an even more extreme food choice.

The Insect Cookbook: Food for a Sustainable Planet deals with the fact that some insects can be eaten as a cheap source of protein. Some are eaten around the world, including in Thailand. On TV documentaries, adventurous travelers are shown shopping in provincial Thai food markets, sampling the insects sold as food. Does that mean many Thai people will want to taste these items? It is doubtful, but the book’s authors, two entomologists and a chef, explain that in principle, they should. Arnold van Huis is professor of tropical entomology at Wageningen University and consultant on insects as food and feed to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Henk van Gurp is cooking instructor at the Rijn IJssel Hotel and Tourism School in Wageningen, the Netherlands, and has been involved with entomophagy (the eating of insects) for almost twenty years. Marcel Dicke is professor of entomology at Wageningen University and Rhodes Professor at Cornell University, USA. These three experts point out that insects are abundant, making them a sustainable source of protein. Their arguments persuaded the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, who provided a quote for this book:

Invite politicians to dinner and let them tell the world how delicious it is…. They will proudly go around and say, ‘I ate crickets, I ate locusts, and they were delicious.

At his own dinner table, Kofi Annan probably does not serve insects to his guests. What is good for mankind in general is not the same as what individual people actually like to eat. The TU Libraries have other serious studies about the protein to be found in this food source, and how efficient it is compared to traditional farming methods. They even predict that within a few years, we see see supermarket shelves stocked with insect items as routine sales offerings.

Not only Thailand.

For Thai people who dismiss entomophagy as a disgusting practice that only provincial people do, it may be interesting to note that the practice also occurs in Mexico, where roasted ants are enjoyed, and Japan, where wasps are considered a taste treat. Readers may still find they have entomophagophobia, or a fear of eating bugs, which to most people is understandable. It would be easy if readers were persuaded by intellectual arguments, such as the fact that insects contain more nutrients and iron per gram than other protein sources. Since less land must be farmed to produce them, they represent a reduced protein carbon footprint. Yet ideas cannot really convince the stomach, as anyone knows who has tried to persuade a small child to eat healthy foods instead of candy. Nor is it really helpful when the authors of The Insect Cookbook try to argue that other types of foods do not disgust us, so why should insects? They cite the example of honey, which is something bees vomit as part of its development. Since few people know this scientific fact, they are not discouraged from eating honey. Likewise, it is unpersuasive to be told that many people eat insect parts every day without realizing it, since bugs or parts of bugs are found in vegetables, rice, beer, pasta, spinach and broccoli. Even strict food protection laws do not entirely exclude the presence of some small amount of insects in certain food types. This may be true, but it hardly makes people want to eat even more insects on purpose.

In an interview with Scientific American, Arnold van Huis explained some details of his motivation before an international conference about whether insects can feed the world in 2014:

Insects are still more or less considered a poor man’s diet. It still has that reputation. In the tropics they don’t talk about it, because they know that in the Western world people consider it primitive. I also found that a lot of people say, ‘When we have more wealth, we will switch to a Western diet’ — the hamburger instead of the insects. And I hope we can change this perception of insects as food during this conference… But it was considered a peculiar habit of people in the tropics. Never was it looked at as something we could do as well… For human consumption, the processing is quite important — how to rear the insects, what kind of organic waste to grow them on — because that makes it economically interesting. If you look at the social sciences, of course, consumer attitude is quite important. It’s not just a matter of taste; it’s also a matter of emotions.

Dr. van Huis admits that some insects can taste horrible, while others, he claims, are pleasant:

Let me start with the negative ones. There are flies from eastern African lakes that come out in huge clouds at certain Moon phases. People make a kind of cake out of it — kungu cake. I’ve tasted those and I didn’t like it at all. What I like most also depends a lot on the preparation. Crickets or grasshoppers can be made very delicious.

That may be his opinion, but will Thai foodies go into a restaurant and order insect burgers or wild mushroom risotto with added grasshoppers?

The market in Thailand.

As a report from 2014 indicated, some Thai people are trying to make a business out of this recent trend. Khun Jai, who lives in a village near Don Chedi, 80 kilometers northwest of Bangkok, manages 15 concrete pens in her small cricket farm. The study claims that although in some countries eating insects has declined because it is seen as a thing for poor country people to do, in the Kingdom this activity has increased in popularity. Thailand was praised by the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organisation as one of the few countries to have developed a viable and thriving insect farming sector with more than 20,000 insect farming enterprises … registered in the country. Many millions of dollars US are involved in this farming sector which is growing fast into a significant part of the economy, even more quickly than university studies and government research can follow. Khun Jai claimed that her farm cost 3,000 baht to start, and after five months had earned back this initial investment, along with an additional 20,000 baht. Spending 100,000 baht more for the concrete blocks that make up her farm, she regularly earns 20,000 baht per month by selling 200 kilos of crickets. She plans to further increase the size of her farm in the near future and sell to wholesalers in Talad Thai, on the outskirts of Bangkok, the country’s largest wholesale and retail market. It is reported that at Talad Thai, over 300,000 baht per month of sales involves insects. Vendors tell shoppers that eating silkworm pupae is good for their joints, especially their knees. Some merchants, who claim to earn at least 100,000 baht per month, import insects from Cambodia and China and export to Thai communities around the world, including the USA.

Where they are popular.

Traditionally, insects have been popular as food in the Isan region and the south. Dr. Yupa Hanboonsong, associate professor of entomology at Khon Kaen University and co-author of a 2013 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations report on insect farming in Thailand, explains that this popularity is spreading and diversifying:

We have been throwing food fairs, introducing new recipes, serving them in school lunches, putting the food in nicer packaging, exposing [children] to insects in a more positive way. Through this, we change opinions. Fifteen years ago, this was only seen as something the Isan, the poor, and the old would eat. Now, recently I saw a child who was 5 to 6 years old eating insects. I went up to her and asked, ‘Why are you eating insects?’ And she looked at me like it was such a weird question to ask! You know it’s normal to her—she’s just eating it like she would a piece of candy.

Even so, many of us will prefer to remain with more traditionally appetizing choices when we think of lunch or dinner. Yet it is noteworthy that this small change may help the economic and environmental future of the Kingdom.

(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).