future farming

larvae farming
the protein of the future
a true solution ?


cleaning away waste
tonnes of detritus produced
from food leftovers


a natural way ?
recreating circles of life
recycling veggies


morgentau © dawndew

To us, bugs are nature's practical joke. On the other side of the world, silkworms have been part and parcel of Oriental civilizations for centuries and not just for the silk they produced. Many silkworms ended up between chopsticks as a food item. The pupa of the silkworm is the stage that is eaten. This is because the pupa is formed after the caterpillar has spun the silken cocoon. The cocoons are boiled to collect the silk. After the average of 1,000 yards of silk from each cocoon is harvested, the cooked pupae remain.

In China, they're considered delicacies. The Chinese snack on a wide variety of insects, from water bugs boiled and then soaked vinegar to live scorpions doused in baijiu, a robust liquor. While Chinese citizens eat all sorts of insects, the country's finer restaurants tend to serve its delicacies in the larval state. Chinese gourmands enjoy roasted bee larvae and fried silkworm moth larvae, which are both rich in nutrients like copper, iron, riboflavin, thiamin and zinc. And when temperatures begin to drop, the Chinese keep warm with a steaming bowl of ant soup. The Chinese aren't the only people who like ants:

In Brazil, içás, or queen ants, are a favorite snack. Although ants were once eaten only by poorer citizens, this tradition is now celebrated. Every October and November, these massive winged ants emerge from underground to the delight of the residents of Silveiras, a small town in southwest Brazil. They collect the ants, remove their wings and fry 'em up (or dip them in chocolate). There's even an arts and crafts center devoted to the içá-eating tradition, where you'll find everything from dishes to aprons featuring images of the beloved bug. Are you wondering why içás are so popular? Silveiras' townspeople claim that they taste just like mint.

Bugs have been a staple of Japan's cuisine for centuries due to their abundance. In fact, during rough agricultural and economic times, insects were the main means of survival for many rural populations. Today, bugs are becoming a more common sight on Japanese menus: Restaurants all over the country serve up hearty portions of hachi-no-ko (boiled wasp larvae), sang (fried silk moth pupae) and zaza-mushi (aquatic insect larvae). The Japanese also enjoy munching on fully grown insects such as semi (fried cicada) and inago (fried grasshopper). And though noshing on insects is still a little taboo here - particularly in the cities - many Japanese people are beginning to broaden their culinary horizons.