Insects are heading to become a menu item on European dining tables after the bloc’s food safety regulator approved table worms as safe for human consumption.
Wednesday’s announcement means the larvae – actually beetle larvae – could soon be ground and used as protein-rich flour to make pasta and bread, or eaten whole in salads and other recipes. The next steps involve obtaining marketing and labeling approvals and for the European Commission to sign the decision of the European Food Safety Authority.
The ruling provides for an elevator for companies such as Micronutris, a French edible insect farm, and other new companies, including AgriProtein in South Africa, Protix in the Netherlands and another French company, Ynsect, which is building a new farm with production capacity of over 100,000 tons of bugs per year.
Perhaps the biggest question is whether Europeans will want to eat beetles – a popular snack in parts of Asia and Latin America for a long time – even if they are ground into flour.
Giovanni Sogari, a researcher in social and consumer models at the University of Parma in Italy, said many may have difficulty at first. “There are cognitive motives derived from our social and cultural experiences, the so-called ‘yuck factor’, which make the thought of eating insects repel many Europeans,” he said. “With time and exposure, such attitudes can change.”