Eating Like John the Baptist

A recent field day at the South Farms of the University of Missouri in Columbia featured on its menu of offerings the opportunity to sample fried crickets. I well remember that as a child in Sunday school I read about John the Baptist, forerunner and cousin of Jesus, who lived in the wilderness and ate locusts and wild honey. My classmates and I approved of the wild honey, but gagged at the thought of eating grasshoppers.

Insects for human consumption are being considered for space travelers. Life support systems must be compact and light weight. Waste materials must be kept to a minimum, and anything that cannot be recycled must be returned to earth. An article by Gene R. DeFoliart, professor of entomology at the University of Wisconsin, reports that a closed system for space using the small beetle, “Segobium paniceum” has been proposed.

The natives of Algeria, according to the article, use locusts extensively. A 1991 report states that around Tougurt “every house and tent has prepared its store of locusts, on the average about 200 kilo for each tent.” In the Ksours of the Quad-Souf some 60 camel loads (9,000 kilos) are accumulated daily as a valuable source of food for the poor.

The locusts are first prepared by cooking them in salt water, then drying them in the sun. One writer suggests that they have a shrimp-like taste. A Peace Corps friend of mine who worked in Africa survived on a diet that included insects, and reported their having a nut-like flavor.

A wide variety of insects are used for food around the world, with the literature reporting them as “termites, locusts, grasshoppers, caterpillars, or just insects,” More than 200 species are known to be consumed – fresh, fried, or dried. DeFoliart article reports that in a 1974 survey in Mexico City, in which 12,300 people were interviewed, 93 percent considered that insects are “in the future” and that commercially produced insect products should be encouraged.

Scientist who test insects for nutritional value discover what birds have known for a long time. Nine Mexican insect species tested to have a caloric value superior to that of corn, which is known as a high-energy grain. In Zaire the crude protein of dried caterpillars averaged 64 percent.

Insects appear to be headed toward receiving a much higher status in the scheme of things. The Food Insects Research and Development Project was organized at the University of Wisconsin in 1986. Its aim is “to stimulate a wider awareness among food and agricultural scientist, government agencies, and the public that insects are a food resource that warrants serious investigation.

Insects, Dr. DeFoliart suggests, offer a number of attributes, such as high food conversion efficiency as compared with traditional meat animals. They eat a wide variety of organic substances not efficiently used in conventional agriculture – wood eating termites, for example. They produce without the need for additional arable land, fertilizers, irrigation, herbicides, pesticides or expensive equipment.

Can we envision spiced Mormon cricket as an appetizer, a caterpillar burger as the main entrée, and chocolate covered ants for dessert? The connection between John the Baptist and travelers in space may be closer than we think.