Lumen Winter 2023 - Flipbook - Page 18
Edible insects - for our
plate and our planet
Would you consider adding crunchy crickets
into your weeknight meals?
How about grinding some mealworms into a
stock to add a bit of umami to your favourite
soup, while also making a small step towards
reducing your environmental impact?
The question of how the human race feeds
an ever-growing population in the future is
what led food scientist Ishka Bless, a joint
PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide
and the University of Nottingham, to
investigate what makes people so squeamish
when the idea of eating insects is raised.
Smashed avo bagel with mealworm furikake
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THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
“We’re at quite a pivotal stage in terms of
our food systems and how we approach
them,” she says.
“There is a growing research focus on
a protein transition, which would see us
reduce our reliance on traditional animalbased food products, and increase our
consumption of existing and new protein
alternatives, such as insects.
“That’s not to say that everyone needs
to stop eating meat, but perhaps explore
incorporating alternatives in our
everyday diet.”
“Introducing any new
food into our diet can
be hard, but insects
present some additional
challenges.”
The first stage of the project, conducted
early last year, aimed to establish a sensory
lexicon for edible insects commercially
available in Australia.
