Hearing this what’s normal and culturally natural for the majority of the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere is an expression of disgust or astonishment on their faces. The truth is that a little more than a year ago the European Union (EU) approved a new legislative package known as Novel Food with the aim of making the authorization processes for the entry of new foods into the market simpler and faster; which adds healthy, nutritious and innovative foods to the variety already present in the EU market.
Among the collateral events that the press had in the Global Entrepreunership Summit 2019 (GES2019) based in The Hague and to which Negolution was invited; was the visit to several startups that try through innovation, to have a positive impact on society. One of them was De Krekerij, a project that seeks to change the perception of eating insects and make them part of our daily diet, betting on crickets and grasshoppers. Because they are processed in a special way, they create products that are tasty and accessible. For example, the Krekelburger, where the unique flavor of cricket is preserved.
Cricket meat not only brings substantial health benefits by not containing trans fat (not fattening), but also favors the environment. According to De Krekerij staff: “Twenty liters of water are needed to produce a kilogram of beef, and the gases they produce favor the greenhouse effect. The animals that are used to make their products have a very low impact, but the potential is even greater. Crickets can be fed with residual streams from plant production that is now being destroyed. ”
Although according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 112 countries consume insects, and some like Thailand has developed an entire industry around them; There was no shortage of those who, when tasting cricket burgers, replied with a desperate cry of “First dead than eating bugs.” I, on the other hand, devoured it right away, perhaps because previously in Mexico and as a result of the curiosity that an article published in our sixth issue had given me, I had already consumed fried chapulines with guacamole and nothing has to do with the concise and at the same time tender texture of the hamburgers with the impression of eating the whole animal. If we leave scruples aside and focus on protein value, environmental impact, and formidable flavor. Surely you, like me, will become addicted to those disgustingly delicious cricket burgers.
