For several years, experts have been saying that insect protein is the food of the future. Go ahead, ask your ant, er ... aunt. Hey, don’t bug me. This is a serious issue but some people still can’t wrap their heads around eating a cricket. With 7.6 billion people on this pale blue dot all needing three squares a day, they can’t all eat chicken and peanut butter for their nutritional needs.
The good news is that you’re already eating bugs, whether you know it or not. Aside from all of the bugs that fly right down your throat while you’re biking – I’m talking to you no-see-ums, wherever you are – there are nutritional regulations about how much bug can legally be allowed in food that you buy.
Not to mention the thousands of years of tradition. Yup, that’s right. Science has determined that insects have been a part of human diet since well before sliced turkey breast could be bought in a store. According to IFLScience.com, entomophagy (or the consumption of insects) is a part of the current diet of approximately two billion people in the world. It says that more than 1,900 species are edible but the most commonly eaten bugs are beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps and ants. Crickets are rising on that list, too.
And hey, if you went to K-Days, maybe you enjoyed some chocolate-covered crickets. The Edmonton festival always has some kind of extreme food thrill fare for the daring gourmands but this certainly was tamer and healthier than the deep-fried chocolate bars, lobster-filled corn dogs and pulled pork sundaes, among other gastronomically and psychologically challenging chewables. They did have a scorpion pizza four years ago though.
Even Loblaws announced back in March that its Superstore locations would start to sell 100-per-cent cricket powder. Make that 100-per-cent Canadian cricket powder. While the St. Albert Superstore doesn’t carry the President’s Choice product yet, a 113-g package is available for purchase online for $14.98. The finely ground powder “with a mild taste” can be added to smoothies, sauces, chili, curries and baking batters, Superstore’s website says, and it’s high in protein and is an excellent source of vitamin B12. The entire package has an estimated 70 grams of protein and only 550 calories. It does come with a caution that people who are allergic to crustaceans and shellfish might also have an allergic reaction to crickets.
Taking it to the next level
If you’re not yet confident to do your own cooking and baking with bugs, that’s no problem. Just head down to the St. Albert Farmers’ Market, stroll down the St. Anne Promenade, and say hi to Claudio La Rocca and Silvia Ronzani of Camola Sustainable Foods. Camola is a new Edmonton business that only sells prepared foods made out of cricket powder and yes, there’s a lot of buzz.The academic entomologists were first introduced to the taste of grasshoppers a decade ago. Getting over the "ick" factor was quick for them but the idea for this business has been gestating in a cocoon up until now.
Eating a bug ain't so bad, they say.
“Honestly, I didn’t think it tasted like much. It was pretty mild. The only taste was the little bit of salt on top of it. That’s why we decided to try to make something a little bit different with them,” La Rocca said.
“Claudio and I have a different opinion of that. For me, it was herb-y . . . like the smell of hay drying in the field,” Ronzani added. “We thought that the taste was very interesting. We started thinking about using insects, learning a little more about entomophagy and their nutrient content and their sustainability. We honestly fell in love with those animals. We started using them at home and we started thinking, ‘Why don’t we do something to try to make other people try them.’ That’s why we started this company.”
They thought that there was more potential than just selling a bunch of bugs in a bag. The use of insects in food is gaining popularity in North America. People reason that there are many nutritional benefits to ingesting crickets and other critters, including being high in healthy lean protein, no cholesterol, and with good levels of iron, potassium, calcium and vitamin B12, among other factors.
Their cricket powder comes from an Ontario facility. The critters are raised indoors, mostly because they are tough to corral if they get loose outside. They’re also easy to raise, plus insect farming tends to produce less greenhouse gas and requires less feed, water and land than traditional livestock.
And that’s not all.
“You don’t need any antibiotics. You don’t need any chemical or hormones. The killing process is very natural. We freeze them,” Ronzani said.
They also don’t need any preservatives or other chemicals, she noted, as they stay fresh and stable on the shelf for a long time.
“It’s just pure ground up crickets.”
Delish, right?
Camola has a modest line of products at this point but sales are strong. They offer chocolate almond and orange hazelnut biscotti that they call Bug-scotti – they are delicious, Ronzani said – plus Bug Bites, which is a version of an energy bar that’s handmade and with no added sugar. Their bestselling product is called Crick Chips, which is a potato chip substitute that comes in barbecue and spicy flavours. It's so popular that they are already working on adding new flavours later this year. There’s also the farinata, a savoury pancake/egg-less frittata mix based on a traditional Italian recipe.
Both of the partners are of Italian heritage. While they’re not professional chefs, they did consult a chef at NAIT to develop the recipes. All are high in protein, with the farinata measuring up to 25 per cent protein.
“All of our products are very nutrient rich. They’re also tasty. The idea is we always focus on the taste but the nutrient facts are another bonus. You can have it every day of the week. You can have it with multiple meals, with snacks,” La Rocca said.
Insect protein is also considered to be a very viable source of food for the world. It doesn’t take up nearly the same amount of resources as other food production and it offers plenty of nutrition in return. While their current supplier is in the east, the strength of their customer base has prompted them to build their own facility here in this province.
“We are trying to stay sustainable as much as we can. So having something local instead of shipping it from the other side of Canada makes more sense for us,” Ronzani said.
They did a lot of food testing during the development phase of Camola. It is important to get the right proportions of flour and other ingredients into the cricket powder. Otherwise, the taste might not be well balanced. Yeah. It might be a bit buggy. I agree that the Bug-scotti were tasty but there was something minor afterward that reminded me of the food's unusual origins. There was a lingering bug-ness but nothing really unpleasant. It’s probably best to start with small amounts in your food and work up from there.
The good news is that, even after months and months of eating their own cricket products, neither of them has developed antennae.
“Not yet,” they both said, in unison, as if they were hiveminds.
Camola has already reached agreements with several Edmonton businesses to sell its products, including Bent Stick Brewing Co. in the city’s northeast, Health Matters health food store and the Edmonton Corn Maze in the city’s west end. Other cafés and health-food stores have also expressed interest. The world, as they say, is their hull.
In addition to the St. Albert Farmers’ Market, they also have booths at the City Market Downtown, the 124th Grand Market and online at www.camolafoods.com. And go ahead and make the bug jokes with them. They have a pretty good sense of humour about the whole thing.
