Woman Launches New Food Truck…That Serves Insects!
- Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:21pm by
Liz Klimas
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High in protein, low in saturated fat, vitamin packed and easy to rear. What sort of food source has such an impressive resume? Insects of course.
Tastes like pork rind. (Image: Screenshot via Fair Companies)
And although many still view them as creepy crawlies, Mónica Martínez, owner of the Don Bugito food cart in San Fransisco, Calif., believes Americans are ready to embrace entomophagy (insect-eating) and hopes the dish will at least gain acceptance in the United States, like sushi did in the last 20 years.
But here‘s a cue if you’re already getting grossed out: they’re already in the food you at in some capacity and, as reported by Fair Companies, 80 percent of the world already considers insects a source of protein.
Watch Martínez’s story and see the demand surrounding the food truck (Note: if you make it to 6:20 you can even learn how to prepare the larvae yourself):
Fair Companies reports that after initial squeamishness, the first time bug-eaters described Martínez’s fried wax moth larvae tacos like regular tacos with a “pork rind”-esq crunch. Martínez also serves mealworms fried and seasoned with cinnamon on top of vanilla ice-cream (Toffee Mealworm Ice-Cream), like sprinkles. The tacos go for $8 and ice-cream for $3.
Wax Moth Larvae Tacos from Don Bugito food cart. (Image: Screenshot via Fair Companies)
Fair Companies continues with diner opinions:
Most seemed ready to accept a new source of protein with relatively few questions.
One customer even questioned the question, “Is it weirder than eating a cow?”. Given the expense involved in raising a cow (both the resources required to feed and house it, as well as the hormones and antibiotics used in conventional farming), it would seem that bugs (with the best feed-to-meat conversion ratio of any other edible creature) have an advantage over more traditional sources of protein.
Martínez, who is also an artist dedicated to micro architectural structures (i.e. small farms), created a home mealworm farm called Wurmhaus as a nod to the Bauhaus humanist approach and a reaction to “contemporary agriculture and the practices of large-scale factory farms”.
Monica Martinez's Wurmhause is used to rear edible insect larvae. (Photo: Monica Martinez)
If you're interested in rearing your own mealworms, here's how. (Image: Monica Martinez)
Even with some public acceptance, Fair Companies reports Martínez as saying she still doesn’t believe mealworms will become a staple food group, but just hopes it gains acceptance.
And, it’s worth noting, if you’re stomach is still turning over the thought of a mealworm taco, the FDA has acceptable levels of insects allowed in our food. It’s called “Levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods that present no health hazards for humans.” Ground cinnamon, for example, can only have 400 insect parts or less, per 50 grams. Canned mushrooms are allowed to have 20 or fewer maggots of any size per 100 grams of drained mushrooms and proportionate liquid; if the maggots are more than 2 mm in size, only 5 are allowed per 100 grams.
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Comments (53)
Carol Ingian
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 4:39pmYuck!
Report Post »I’d go vegetarian before eating that!
eleemosynary
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 6:07pmYeah “tastes like pork, sort of.” Just add salt. At least it is not alive…
I wish them the best in their efforts and hope they are successful.
Report Post »Lotus503
Posted on October 18, 2011 at 11:25amI wonder what the health department has to say about it…they can‘t fine ’em for having insects in the food, because the insects ARE the food!
“Cockroaches? No problem! We’ll just create another dish!”…
Report Post »AxelPhantom
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 4:32pmNot exactly my first choice at lunch break, but if she can make it work for her, more power to her.
Report Post »symphonic
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 8:03pmShe can make it work in SAN FRANCISCO where people there are upside down on just about everything, starting with homosexuality
Report Post »Pyx
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 4:30pmIf you reduce people to starvation as Moochelle Obama is on track to do and then pass enough laws banning home grown food like Obama and the democRATs have started, then even eating insects and being treated as livestock should become acceptable to people.
Report Post »thegreatcarnac
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 4:24pm……and if you have trouble swallowing them..they will just crawl down your throat.
Report Post »What a load of crap.
BubbaT
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 4:12pmDid the Air-Force just shower the entire city of San Fransicko with acid back in the 70′s or did just every citizen drop and never recover? Can we just quarantine the city from here on out?
Report Post »ComradeAdam
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:52pm“But Health Inspector, There are supposed to be maggots in our food.”
Report Post »nelan72
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:50pmIt would be a shame to find a carrot in the meal worms.
Report Post »2smart
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:44pmGreat! This is how the capitalist system works. If they line up and she is successful then more power to her. But, if it flops I would hope that nobody hollers “bail-out” or subsidizes with tax payer money.
Report Post »Clubber1
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:39pmGrubbs DO taste like butter, and Grasshoppers (locusts) are nutty and delicious. Ants can be either sweet or spicy depending on what kind….get over it people, quit being such food snobs. Most of the world eats bugs and likes it. Much easier to catch than Bambi.
Report Post »Favored93
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 4:20pmEvery time I go camping I grab as many grasshoppers as I can find. they are tasty over a campfire.
Report Post »During the sacadea (think I misspelled that) storm here in OH (every seven years) my boys,wife and I pig out.
However I do think I would draw the line at worms though but there is NOTHING in the world “wrong” with it.
Chuck Stein
Posted on October 18, 2011 at 7:49pmI voted “no” in the poll, but if folks want to eat insects, then I wish them well. I have eaten a cicada (to the disgust of my daughters) — not a big deal. There is too much food snobbery/secular tabooism regarding food. Christ made all foods “clean.” Despite that, we have recently banned the slaughter of horses “for human consumption” in the United States. Allowing people to eat what they want is a basic liberty. We are spending close to 40 MILLION dollars a year to keep horses that could be served as steaks in Japan and Belgium (thus improving our balance of trade) — absurd, or what?
Report Post »svedka
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:36pmI wonder how they are going to supervise the humane processing of the bugs and who are these people who think bugs have no rights?
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:31pmThe ObamaDiet for the people in ObamaLand, when the ObamaStash runs out!
Report Post »Eliasim
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:22pmBugs! That’s disgusting. What are you people, rats? There are things that rats won’t even eat. Albeit everything is food except the flesh thereof, I think I will pass on the bugs. Oh I know what it is, you think John the Baptist ate bugs because the Good Book says “Locusts” were his meat. When in reality it means that John the Baptist baptized with water. That means all the people who are unto locusts who were high on the wine of a false reality, John the Baptist would bring them back down to reality with “The water”, and the things they learned through suffering reality, was his meat.
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:32pmShe should deliver to the insects at OWS. No Carapace, No Pincers, No Service
Report Post »RightPolitically
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:21pmTHE THIRD WORLD is taking over America and guess what, they are ALL liberals.
Report Post »M13
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:14pmTake a menu down to Wall Street and see how many occupiers are hungry.
Report Post »UnitedStatesOfAmerica
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:12pmOh boy! New ideas for school lunches! This was probably orchestrated by Michelle Obama.
Report Post »UnitedStatesOfAmerica
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:03pmThis was probably orchestrated by Michelle Obama.
Report Post »GhostOfJefferson
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:55pmFind a need and fulfill it. God bless the free market.
Report Post »Coolcat51
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:53pmHave you ever wondered how John the Baptist survived in the desert eating locusts and honey? I bet you thought he ate insects and dined on honey comb. Well, I thought so too, until the Seventh IIFWP (Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace) pilgrimage to Israel in September, 2004. On that trip I learned that his honey was date honey crushed from dates, and that the flour for his bread came from grinding the bean of the locust tree. Yes, a personal visit to the Holy Land can dispel misconceptions.
Report Post »Coolcat51
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:51pmThe basic diet of John the Baptist, which was locusts and wild honey.
Report Post »biohazard23
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:46pmTo each his own….
Report Post »Gamaliel
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:37pmDon’t dismiss this as a joke. This is where Obama wants you America. .. . . grubbing for insects.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:44pmShe should go down to OWS … I am sure she could collect a lot of “product” down there.
TEA!
Report Post »biohazard23
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:06pmBut no one eats scabies mites and fleas…..
Report Post »Tired-of-fools
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:17pmGrubbing for insects? Isn’t that what they did in Cambodia? What’s next, the killing fields?
Report Post »sizzler2220
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:37pmThey have been eating live sow bugs in flour tortillas for ever in mexico.
Report Post »ROMANS 10-9
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:36pmI would rather have a proctofingerpop!
Report Post »SteadyMountain
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:34pmAs long as people enjoy it, then there’s no problem.
Report Post »Bluefish49
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:30pmThis is nothing new…I am in the construction industry….they don’t call them “Roach Coaches” for nothing.
Report Post »TXPilot
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 2:38pmWell, in a few months, when food gets hard to obtain or so expensive most of us can’t afford it anymore, I have to admit, that these bugs may start looking pretty tasty. However, when this happens, I will give thanks to Glenn for recommending I purchase my freeze-dried food storage, so I can avoid eating the crawly critters. Enduring packets of pre-packaged pseudo-food will be much better than trying to convince my kids to suck down a bowl of worms…..although, it won’t be near as much fun!
Report Post »GhostOfJefferson
Posted on October 17, 2011 at 3:08pm@Tx
Keep in mind that grubs taste like butter, so it’s not that horrible. Take the legs off a cricket and they go down with no fuss.
The things I’ve not eaten in my life are few. Not that I’d wish to do so again unless out of need.
Report Post »Chuck Stein
Posted on October 18, 2011 at 7:35pmMy thoughts, too. Food wagons have been “serving” insects (where the insects get served food)since forever — the new thing is the intentional serving of insects to people.
Report Post »