Exercise 2a, page 29.0:01
Waiter, there's a scorpion in my soup!0:11
Are insects the food of the future?0:18
You're at a restaurant and there's a fantastic aroma coming from the kitchen.0:23
'I think I'll have the dish of the day,' you tell the waiter.0:29
Then out comes a huge platter of fried tarantulas and a bowl of grasshopper tacos.0:32
'You're going to enjoy that.0:39
Bon appétit,' says the waiter.0:41
Now, maybe this makes your stomach churn, but some food scientists are hoping that insects will become a common sight at our dinner tables in the future.0:45
The idea of eating insects, known as entomophagy, certainly isn't new or unusual.0:55
Ancient Roman and Greek aristocrats, for instance, loved to dine on beetle larvae and locusts.1:01
What's more, insects are eaten today in four-fifths of countries around the world.1:08
In Ghana, bread is made from winged termites, and in China, cooked baby bees are a delicacy.1:13
In Thailand, the night markets are an insect eater's dream, with deep-fried locusts, giant water bugs, and marinated silkworms some of the most popular snacks.1:21
Some cinema-goers in South America even pop roasted ants into their mouths instead of popcorn.1:33
The fact is, the food we eat is largely influenced by culture.1:40
At a certain point, people in Western countries began to see insects as pests that destroy crops rather than as a food source.1:45
Now bugs are mostly only eaten to shock TV audiences.1:54
Many Westerners wouldn't hesitate to order shrimp and lobster in a fancy restaurant, yet these are arthropods, just like insects.1:58
Some even describe them as the bugs of the ocean.2:07
You may be surprised to learn that we all already eat insects whether we like it or not.2:11
Amazingly, we eat half a kilo of insects each year as insect contamination is often unavoidable when manufacturing foods.2:17
By law, chocolate can have up to 60 insect parts in it per 100 grams, for instance, and tomato sauce can contain up to 30 fly eggs per 100 grams.2:27
You'll probably think twice now before tucking into your next bar of chocolate.2:39
So insects don't taste terrible then?2:43
Well, apparently not.2:46
Fans of the witchetty grub, considered to be the fillet steak of the bug world, say that it tastes like a tasty cheese omelette rolled in dough.2:48
Fried crickets have a pleasant nutty taste, and barbecued grasshoppers taste just like roasted peppers.2:57
Just don't look at your plate first.3:04
Not only can insects taste agreeable, but they are plentiful too.3:06
There are an estimated 40 tons of insects for every human on the planet.3:11
So far, we know that 1,400 are edible, but there are thousands more species out there that we haven't tried eating yet.3:16
"Insects are such an abundant food source that it seems crazy not to use them," says the head chef of Archipelago.3:24
"We've just got to get over our fear of eating them."3:31
The EU agrees with him and is soon going to launch a project to promote insect eating.3:35
They see endomophagy as a cheap and environmentally friendly solution to the problem of feeding the world's growing population.3:41
Insect farming takes a fraction of the resources needed for producing meat.3:49
Insects are healthy too.3:53
They are full of vitamins and protein and have low levels of cholesterol and fat.3:55
A burger, for example, is about 18% protein and 18% fat, while cooked grasshoppers contain 24% protein and just 6% fat.4:00
It seems that dishes such as scorpion soup will start appearing on our Western menus sooner than we think.4:15
Certainly, many scientists think that by 2020 insects will be available in our supermarkets.4:22
If this seems unlikely to you, remember that aubergines and sushi were once alien foods at the Western table.4:29
Insects, once seen as pests, might just become our knights in shining armor in the very near future.4:37
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