Personally, I have very little exposure to the concept of insects as food, so even though I have researched it, I cannot wrap my head around the idea of how it could ever be normalised in Singapore. In my last entry, I mentioned a friend who regularly eats insects. I decided to ask him more about his insect-eating activities in order to understand how he keeps it up in Singapore.
Q: What got you started in eating insects?
Friend: “I was about 12? I was in scouts and my scout master said, ‘a good scout needs to know how to survive off nature!’ A senior scout caught a lizard during camp and told us to try it, so we learnt how to clean and cook it.”
Q: Why do you like insects?
Friend: ” ‘Cause they taste good! The best way to cook them is to barbeque them. When they’re skewered, some taste like sausages.”
Health and environmental benefits were not considerations for him in eating insects, in fact, he did not know of them at all! After I told him about some reasons why people are pushing for entomophagy, he happily agreed, “I knew I had good karma, but I didn’t know it was ’cause of this!” (Cue laughter).
Q: Where do you normally eat insects?
Friend: “I like to go camping with my friends, usually at Pulau Ubin or in Sembawang. We catch crickets and lizards to eat since they’re the easiest to catch— we can set out bait or just use our hands. Cooking ants and crickets are easy, we just fry them in a pan. To clean lizards you need to de-gut them, and for cockroaches you need to cut off its wings and one end of it to squeeze out the stinky parts, then cook it twice on two different skewers to really burn off the pathogens and make sure it’s edible.”
Q: How do other people react when you say you eat insects?
Friend: “Well for starters, my parents say I’m their dirtiest child— and they have 4 children! Most people think it’s really gross, but that obviously doesn’t stop me. I don’t think eating insects will kick off in Singapore honestly, given people’s reactions. But I’m still gonna keep getting people to try!”
After the interview, the questions I had about his insect-eating habits were completely resolved. I was initially weirded out, since I did not know how he made sure they were clean enough to eat. After thorough questioning, I realised it is essentially the same as the outdoor cooking we do during school camps. One just needs to know how to identify a few insects, and learn some preparation techniques to make a perfectly edible snack.
I think the difference between the perspectives of my friend and non-insect-eaters is that he had a lot of exposure and experience of being in nature, and through scouts, had mentor figures who were knowledgable and comfortable with entomophagy. They were able to impart not just technical information, but also an open attitude to trying ‘gross’ things.
Perhaps psychological inertia is a major factor inhibiting our paradigm shift towards entomophagy, but with an insect-eating friend, it is something we can consider trying!
Thanks for allowing me to interview and write about you, Friend!
Hello Anna!
WOW I’m so amazed that there are actually people who actively eat insects in Singapore, considering how I always saw entomophagy as a “no-choice” decision when it comes to food scarcity in the future. I think for me, it’s so difficult to stomach this idea (pun intended c;) not because I see them as unhygienic, but also because of my fear for insects in general? Moreover, why would I choose to eat insects if I could have delicious prawn noodles or a warm bowl of rice instead? Oh wells, I guess I do have to work on overcoming this pyschological barrier to prepare myself for the ‘diet of the future’!
I also have a question on how filling insects can be! How many insects would I need to consume to replace a proper meal? Would this large number of insects required per meal per person be sustainable then? Moreover, consumption of insects usually lean toward insect species that are larger and have more nutritional value? In that sense, if the world was forced to heavily rely on insects as a diet, do you think the reliance on target insect species affect their populations in any way? Would it lead to dwindling populations of these particular species, or would there be no significant impact because of how fast and much they reproduce?
If I could ask one more question, how does one deem a particular insect fit for eating? Do people just catch insects that they think look delicious and experiment with cooking them? In that sense, how would we know whether we have cleaned the insect enough (like for the cockroach) before consumption, is it through trial and error (and hoping for the best)?
I hope the phrasing of the questions are comprehendable and please let me know if you need clarification on the questions asked! Thank you so much and I can’t wait to hear from you!
– Yee Qi
Hey Yee Qi!
HAHA same I always saw entomophagy as such a far fetched method of dealing with food security, but actually it’s been practiced for a longgg time, and even now at least 113 countries still eat insects!
Firsty, I love your questions. They’re sooo interesting I had a lot of fun thinking about them! I’m not exactly sure how much you would need to feel full, because I realised in many western articles about insect nutritional values, insects are seen to be “supplementary” to our diets. You may not feel full because you wouldn’t need to eat much to actually fulfill a lot of your dietary requirements! I did some quick maths, and for a Singaporean weighing 60kg they’d need to only eat 250g of mealworms to make up their daily protein intake, and that amount is also about 1,400kcal!
Wow I never really considered that insect farming could be inadequate if everyone were to convert! I’m not sure if there is some threshold we can’t overcome with rearing them, but reading the research on how efficient insect farming is in terms of how fast they grow and reproduce, I don’t think there’s much to fear in terms of it being insufficient! What’s more, although people do gather them from the wild (like my friend lol), I believe that if we were to normalise it then more focus will be put in farmed insect development.
Also, there’s like, 2000+ known species eaten by humans! Loads of choice for dietary diversity.
I feel right, that these species are known to be edible through the passing down of knowledge from previous generations. In cultures where entomophagy is normal, this could be common knowledge they simply learn, like how we know the types of local food in Singapore! (Also, according to my Friend, yes it is mainly…trial and error… if you don’t have someone with prior experience informing you LOL he cited many incedences of stomach ache).
Really really want to thank you for your comment! I hope I managed to answer even some of your questions 🙂
Anna
Hello Anna!
Thank you for the response and clarification, I learnt so many new things about entomophagy! There’s such a large diversity of species that are known to be edible, I guess we wouldn’t have to trial and error if entomophagy becomes adopted on a global scale! Yay to no stomach aches 🙂
Looking forward to your upcoming posts!
– Yee Qi
Hi Anna & Yee Qi – if I may, could I pls just point out that insects, in reality are not all that different from prawns. I mean, they’re all arthropods – the main difference is crustaceans have 4 more legs and are mostly aquatic.
jc
Hi Dr Coleman,
That’s true! Lobsters actually were counted as a poor man’s food in America before WW2, due to its copious amount and ease of harvest. It was called “cockraches of the sea”. They only gained popularity due to the rise of canned food and trains.
Anna
Hi Anna,
Wow ok, your friend’s scout troop seems a lot more hardcore than mine. We just learnt how to make traps but we didn’t manage to catch anything.
I guess it really is important to have a community with knowledgable mentors when it comes to these more niche stuff. I still won’t be catching cockroaches for consumption though – farmed ones might me more palatable.
~Ee Kin
Hey Ee Kin,
HAHA yes their’s sounds really intense. I doubt I’ll be catching cockroaches either! We’ll see when farmed cockroaches become a thing here.
Anna