BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuters) — Houseflies, crickets and silkworms can be safe, nutritious and more environmentally friendly alternatives to chicken, beef and pork, according to research carried out for the European Commission.
Still, they are less likely to be found on European restaurant menus than in animal feed, which is carefully controlled to prevent the kind of prions, or abnormal proteins, blamed for BSE.
The commission is working on revised legislation on novel foods after a previous proposal failed because of opposition to animal cloning.
It asked the European Food Safety Authority to research the safety of eating insects.
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In a recently published scientific opinion, the EFSA said the use of insects as a source of food and feed potentially had important environmental, economic and food security benefits.
Farming of insects can lead to lower emissions of greenhouse gases and ammonia than cattle and pigs and higher efficiency in converting feed to protein, the report said.
“How and to what extent the inclusion of insects in gastronomy can impact the general consumption pattern in the population is unclear, but (it) holds the potential for a rapid change in future consumption patterns,” the report said.
Belgian supermarket operator Delhaize introduced tapenades based on mealworms in its Belgian supermarkets in 2014, but they were not a hit.
“We opted not to have any visible insects in the products to lower the initial reluctance, but even then we saw that the customer wasn’t ready for it,” a spokesperson said.
Insect species believed to have the greatest potential for human food or animal feed in the European Union include houseflies, mealworms, crickets and silkworms.
They are considered as alternatives to mainstream animal sources of food and useful for animal feed, especially in paste or other processed forms.
Whole insects distributed as food would be expected to undergo some processing, such as chilling and drying, and would be labelled with instructions for use.
In some cases, parts of the insect such as the wings and legs of crickets, should be removed “to improve the eating experience and reduce choking risks,” the EFSA said, drawing a comparison with peeling prawns.
