I must have been about 12 years old when I saw a television show once where someone was visiting some tribe in a rain forest. The people from this tribe were roasting huge grasshoppers and according to the reporter they tasted a bit like sausages.

Since then I said, if I have a chance I’ll try one! Unfortunately I haven’t really been confronted with a situation where I could try. To be honest, I also haven’t really been looking for it. Even when we were in Thailand (one would say, the perfect location to be confronted with insects as food) I didn’t see any insects on the menu (again, I also haven’t been looking for it).

Recently there was a documentary about Entomophagy (consumption of insects as food) on television which made me even more interested. They interviewed a Dutch professor at the University of Wageningen showed that our demand for meat will grow and grow and that in the future we need to find alternatives in order meet this demand. An alternative source for protein could be found in eating insects!

After doing a bit of surfing around I found out that there are some ‘farms’ in The Netherlands that produce insects for human consumption. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any here in Switzerland so a new project was born.

Grow a bunch of mealworms to give the eating of insects a try! So, some weeks ago I bought 100 grams of mealworms in a local pet store. Since these mealworms are not grown for human consumption I will wait one cycle before I start making a mealworm curry or have my spicy mealworm snack (instead of chips). I’m feeding them whole grain flour and carrots.

Status: More and more larvae are turning into pupae and I have about 6 beetles that hopefully start laying eggs in the next weeks. These eggs will then hatch and eventually will be my fat juicy mealworms!