Despite my well-rounded 52 years, I try to keep an open mind when faced with phenomena that did not exist in my younger days. Whether it’s influencers, gender-neutral toilets or even people who Zoom without headphones in the Jean Coutu line, I try to be of the times.
I succeed, most of the time. Except for the people who do Zoom without headphones in the Jean Coutu queue.
For food, it’s a bit the same thing: the caveman in me likes his tomahawk steak medium rare, but I’m not anti-vegetarian. A well-prepared plant-based protein can be delicious (I swear) and nutritious (yes, yes).
People will say that I am a retrograde reactionary (forgive the pleonasm), but where I am completely closed-minded is on insects. I will never eat bugs.
Because there is a trend that wants us to eat insects because insects are nutritious and would be an ideal replacement for animal protein in these times of global warming which, as everyone knows, is made worse by animal farming.
In The Presson Monday, there was just an article1 by my colleague Sara Champagne on the hopes of an entomological protein entrepreneur, article topped with an alluring photo (a close-up of mealworm larvae, yum) and a question title (When will there be insects in Quebec grocery stores?).
Response from a consumer (me): no matter how much you offer me some, sliced bread with crickets, garlic spread made from mealworms or ground mealworms for smoothies, I will never buy any, Never.
Having a foot and a half in the electronic media, every year (or almost), the research teams come to me with the idea of inviting one of these bibitte gastronomes so that I can try BBQ-dried crickets and give my immediate reactions with the audience…
My answer is always the same: crickets, no.
Just thinking about it makes my heart lift. I have no desire to impose my gag reflex (audible or visual) on the general public.
I know, I know: this disgust would be in our heads, insects are rich in nutrients of all kinds, super foods, an ideal alternative to meat. I quote Alexis Fortin, from TriCycle, a young Montreal entomoculture startup, at the heart of Sara’s paper: “There is still a stubborn psychological barrier towards insects. We think it’s dirty. It will take another ten years before we properly integrate them into our diet. But there is room for recipes…”
But the repulsion towards insects is not just a “psychological barrier”, it is more complicated: this disgust widely shared among humans from all walks of life is above all the result of thousands of years of human evolution and can be a response to dangers2.
The Darwinian theory of evolution has imprinted on our consciousness the principle of “survival of the fittest” – not the strongest – to explain why some species thrive while others die out.
But evolutionary psychology suggests that if humans have survived so far, it is not only because they have been able to adapt, but Also because he was guided by his fears.
One of these fears: that of insects.
I quote entomologist Jeffrey Lockwood3 : “Evolution favors anxiety genes. Our ancestors had to err on the side of caution. Mistaking a twisted branch for a snake, a falling leaf for a spider, or a grass seed for a louse was more beneficial than ignoring these clues. A “false positive” meant unfounded fear, while a false negative meant elimination from the gene pool. »
In short, eating insects is not a given for humans, including those who push their grocery cart at Maxi. It’s in our genes to be wary of bugs.
Jeffrey Lockwood also has a fabulous expression to explain our disgust with bugs: “the survival of the most frightened”, survival of the scaredest. Being afraid is a guarantee of survival, from an evolutionary point of view. Being afraid of insects is a survival reflex.
Eating insects may be desirable from a rational perspective, but eating insects is also disgusting. I do not use the term disgusting to strike the imagination, it is the term submitted to the 7,560 people surveyed in 13 countries on entomogastronomy4.
This survey demonstrated (if necessary) that the very idea of eating insects is “disgusting”: more than 50% of respondents cited this reason for not wanting to eat them… Exceptions: Mexico and Thailand.
Is this surprising?
No, not when we know that insects (I know, they are essential in ecosystems) provoke knee-jerk reactions in all humans, everywhere in the world.
This perhaps explains why the market for humans willing to add insects to their diet is rather small and that is… perfectly understandable.