REMEMBER, as a young postgraduate student, spending a week's holiday in a student hostel in Paris. Each evening we were given the same three choices for dinner.
I knew no French so the menu was of little use to me. Only one of the dinners was identifiable by sight alone, a meat stew. That was my choice and it tasted very good.
I noticed as the days passed that I was alone in choosing the stew. I drew their attention to this by remarking one evening that the stew was good.
One answered sniffily, on behalf of the others, pointing at the menu, that he didn't fancy eating horse meat. Although I didn't welcome the news, it didn't bother me much. Now, if the menu had mentioned insects.
Most people in western society are repulsed by the idea of eating insects. But this attitude is not shared by people in many parts of the world. Throughout the tropics generally, in most parts of Africa, in Mexico and Amazonia and throughout southeast Asia insects are widely and enthusiastically eaten.
There are millions of living insect species of which about 450 are regularly consumed. This includes 129 species of beetle (Coleoptera), 100 species of bee, ant and wasp (Hymenoptera), 68 species of grasshopper and cricket (Orthoptera), 48 species of butterfly and moth (Lepidoptera), 32 species of bug (Hemiptera), 28 species of cicada and leafhopper (Homoptera), 17 species of termite (Isoptera), 10 species of fly and gnat (Diptera), and about 20 other species in miscellaneous orders.
Insects are nutritious. Most edible species are rich in minerals such as iron and zinc, in vitamins, and the essential amino acid lysine, which is deficient in the otherwise vegetarian diets of many Third World populations.
The protein content of dried insects can be as high as 75 per cent of weight, whereas dried ground beef is only 43 per cent protein. Most edible insects also have a higher calorific (energy) value than beef, wheat and soya beans.
Entomophagy (the eating of insects) has played an important part in our past. When insects are abundant and easily captured, primates switch readily from their usual plant diets to eat insects.
Many hunter gatherer societies regularly eat insects. There is abundant archaeological evidence showing that they featured prominently in the diet of early humans.
Insects are popular in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. They are prominently displayed in the market place and qualify as haute cuisine in the smartest restaurants in Mexico City.
A particularly popular dish is prepared from escamoles, larvae of the black ant. They are fried in black butter, served with onions and garlic and eaten in tacos.
And if you go to the cinema in Colombia and ask for popcorn you are likely to be handed a carton of leaf cutter ants.
TWO principal reasons the average westerner is repulsed by the idea of eating insects are the preconceived notions that all insects are poisonous and live on filth.
In fact, edible insects eat only clean and green vegetation. On the other hand, in most western cultures a fondness for the marine crustaceans crab, shrimp and lobster is taken as the mark of a sophisticated palate.
In fact, these marine creatures feed on all sorts of rubbish.
Only some species of insect are poisonous. A rule of thumb to help you to avoid poisons and allergens is not to eat insects that are hairy, brightly coloured or spiny.
Milky white, green or brown insects are usually suitable for eating.
Insects deteriorate quickly after death and those intended for eating should be processed quickly.
If they are going to be stored they must be dried to prevent the growth of toxic moulds. Various hard parts are usually removed, e.g. the wings and legs. Cooking is generally recommended before eating as, just like all meat and fish, insects may carry parasites.
Although most people would shudder at the thought of eating insects, these little creatures do find their way into our foods.
For example, even the strongest rinsing may leave tiny aphids hidden in the folds of the lettuce leaf. Some of the brown specks in bread may be fragments of insects, perhaps beetles.
There are regulations to control the extent to which insects infest packaged foods. But it is impossible to eliminate insect material altogether from food. American studies have shown that there is an average of 30 or more insect fragments in every 100g of peanut butter and about 30 Drosophila fly eggs in every 100g of tomato sauce.
Fairly high levels of pesticides are necessary to reduce the insect burden of crops so that their subsequent incidence in food will meet the required standards. These standards generally have more to do with levels achievable by current technology, and levels of visual evidence acceptable to consumers, than they have with safety.
In fact, if we were less squeamish about insects, pesticide treatment could be reduced and consequently pesticide residues in food would be reduced.
Insects are the most successful form of animal life on Earth. This is dramatically illustrated by the fact that insects exceed by weight all other animal matter on land. Theoretically therefore insects would seem to be an eminently exploitable source of food.
But the problem with wild insects is that, although they are periodically and locally abundant, their supply is unpredictable. Predictable supplies are essential in order to feed large populations.
EFFORTS are under way to develop a technology that will mass human produce insects for consumption. The idea is to develop insect farms where the insects are fed low quality plant materials such as cellulose which is then efficiently converted into high protein food. A pioneer in this field, Robert Kok, an agricultural engineer at Magill University, envisages a worldscale plant producing 100,000 tonnes of insect meat a year.
The idea of the insect farm sounds good to me. Overcoming the technical difficulties of developing such a farm may be less of a problem than persuading people to eat the creepycrawly product.
Dislike of insects is firmly embedded in western culture. Around this time of year a regular ritual takes place in our house. It is evening and I am sitting watching television with my wife in the living room. Suddenly she spots one of these largish spiders on the wall. Everything must stop while this emergency is dealt with.
I am ordered to remove this creature from the house immediately, naturally without injuring it in any way. If the spider sees me coming and scurries away before I can grab it, this is interpreted as an act of mischief on my part. Maybe she won't be so hard on me, or the spider, after she reads this article.