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Interview
7 March 2021 2.00 h

Sílvia de Lamo

Food, Innovation and Engineering (FoodIE) Research Group

“We’ll eat crickets and black fly larvae”

Does eating insects provide the solution to upcoming global food supply problems? Sílvia de Lamo from the Food, Innovation and Engineering (FoodIE) Research Group at Rovira i Virgili University shares her thoughts

The Eu­ro­pean Food Safety Au­thor­ity (EFSA) has ap­proved the human con­sump­tion of lar­vae from the meal­worm bee­tle, Tene­brio moli­tor. EFSA has in­cluded the in­sect, which is rich in pro­tein, fat and fibre, in its list of Novel Foods, open­ing the door to the fu­ture pro­duc­tion and mar­ket­ing of dif­fer­ent forms of meal­worm (such as de­hy­drated or as a pow­der) in EU coun­tries.

What does EFSA’s ap­proval mean?
It’s an im­por­tant ad­vance and is just the start of what’s to come. It al­lows con­sump­tion of the worms in three prod­uct types: en­ergy bars, pasta and bis­cuits. In ad­di­tion, it can also be pro­duced in a pow­dered form.
Is there a lot of de­mand for worms?
EFSA is­sued an opin­ion in re­sponse to a pro­ject sent to it by a French com­pany. This com­pany had processed all the re­quired doc­u­men­ta­tion to re­quest that meal­worm be recog­nised on the list of so-called novel foods. The agency has given its ap­proval, and this is im­por­tant be­cause it’s a start­ing point for reg­u­lat­ing con­sump­tion. The EU now has to ne­go­ti­ate with mem­ber states so that each can leg­is­late on the issue.
Does EFSA’s recog­ni­tion mean we will soon find worms in the su­per­mar­ket?
The last step of the process is miss­ing. Once each mem­ber state ap­proves it, com­pa­nies will be able to mar­ket it. It should be pos­si­ble to get it by the sum­mer. The EFSA res­o­lu­tion has been on hold since last year but it was de­layed by the pan­demic.
Does that mean it will now be open sea­son on in­sect-based foods?
EFSA has 20 more in­sect-re­lated ap­pli­ca­tions. That’s not to say they will ap­prove all of them, but a prece­dent has been set.
Will eat­ing in­sects be­come nor­mal?
They’re al­ready well es­tab­lished in an­i­mal feed. The door is now open to legally in­cor­po­rat­ing them into the human diet.
Why are new sources of pro­tein needed?
Be­cause by 2050 there will be many more of us in the world than now, and to feed our­selves we’ll need more than 50% of the pro­tein we pro­duce today. The ones we have won’t be enough. Live­stock can­not grow in­def­i­nitely and it also causes pol­lu­tion. In­sects are a good al­ter­na­tive source of pro­tein.
What will join meal­worm on the menu?
Some species of cricket or black fly larva.
So eat­ing in­sects re­sponds to a need rather than a taste or pref­er­ence.
Yes, it’s a ne­ces­sity, but it must be done right. They must be grown on farms that have the right con­di­tions. The In­ter­na­tional In­sect Food Plat­form has a guide with in­for­ma­tion on how to raise them and how to har­vest them. It also de­tails what feed they should be given.
What is the diet of farmed in­sects?
Dif­fer­ent types of feed and high qual­ity or­ganic mat­ter, usu­ally waste from the food in­dus­try. For ex­am­ple, the waste from mak­ing al­mond milk makes good in­sect food. And if we re­cy­cle prop­erly, the or­ganic waste that goes in the brown bin could also be used.
Does using waste to feed in­sects that we will then eat close the cir­cle?
We can’t give just any­thing to the in­sects to eat. We must be care­ful with the kind of waste we give them, be­cause they could ac­cu­mu­late com­po­nents that could end up being harm­ful to our health, as is the case with fish and mer­cury. It’s now also being as­sessed whether they can be given su­per­mar­ket and restau­rant waste; at the mo­ment that still doesn’t hap­pen. The great ad­van­tage of in­sects is that they are ef­fec­tive in con­vert­ing waste into pro­tein, lipids and mi­cronu­tri­ents. They gain weight very quickly and eat very lit­tle, un­like a cow, which needs a lot of food to pro­duce pro­tein.
And is the pro­tein from a cricket as good as what we get from a steak?
To find out if a pro­tein is good, you need to look at the amino acid pro­file. It de­pends on the in­sect species and the meta­mor­phic phase, but in prin­ci­ple they have a good amino acid pro­file.
Do they have to dis­guise the in­sects in bis­cuits or en­ergy bars be­cause oth­er­wise peo­ple wouldn’t eat them?
Our group has done a lot of out­reach on this. Mostly there is re­jec­tion, but there’s also a sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion that doesn’t see it as dis­gust­ing. The more the con­sumer is in­formed about the need to eat in­sects, the more the dis­taste can be over­come. I’ve seen choco­late bars with an in­sect on top or muesli con­tain­ing in­sects. But it’s true that it’s an in­gre­di­ent that most often ap­pears dis­guised. For now, the most ef­fec­tive strat­egy is pre­sent­ing it as an in­gre­di­ent rather than as a whole food. Peo­ple have to get used to it.
Are all in­sects ed­i­ble?
No. But there are more than 2,000 species of ed­i­ble in­sects. The main thing is to know in what meta­mor­phic phase we can con­sume them. The FAO [the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion] col­lects in­for­ma­tion on in­sects that are con­sumed around the world. The EU wants to focus on a spe­cific type of in­sect, ba­si­cally those that can be raised on farms. Maybe later the range will ex­pand, but now we’re ba­si­cally talk­ing about lar­vae.
Can a veg­e­tar­ian eat in­sects?
Some peo­ple say there’s no prob­lem eat­ing them be­cause in­sects do not have a de­vel­oped ner­vous sys­tem that causes it pain, un­like a cow or a rab­bit, for ex­am­ple.
Is eat­ing in­sects ex­pen­sive?
At the mo­ment, yes, be­cause there are few of them and a lot of tech­nol­ogy is ap­plied in the breed­ing process. But it’s a mat­ter of time: the higher the pro­duc­tion, the lower the price will be.

in­ter­view food tech­nol­ogy

Sustainable foodstuffs

The FoodIE research group at the URV has been researching the use of insects as a new ingredient to compensate for the excess production of animal protein for five years. “Since then, we’ve been gaining knowledge in this field to formulate new products and develop techniques that we put at the service of the agrifood industry,” says Sílvia de Lamo. Insects as human food are potentially a more environmentally sustainable alternative source of protein. “There are ever more of us on the planet and we won’t be able to produce enough protein for everyone, so we must look for alternative sources that are also more sustainable. Producing a kilo of beef causes 10 times more CO2 emissions than producing a kilo of crickets,” says the researcher.

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