Feeding all of the people in the world is to put it mildly, a huge undertaking. Millions, if not billions of people are hard at work every day adding their share to the process, from irrigating land, growing crops or raising animals, to reaping and slaughtering and cooking and packing and distribution and selling. It’s likely the most complex and involved system of any kind found on Earth. One of its biggest problems however, is that all that work means the price of food remains relatively high. To help get around that problem, a British group has formed calling itself Insects Au Gratin, which means of course, with cheese. They idea they say is to figure out a way to convert insects to a palatable form of food. Scientist Live is reporting that the group Insects Au Gratin has figured out a way to mix insects with flour and a few other ingredients in a way that allows for it to be printed in 3D onto another substance, also possibly made of flower, and has been demonstrating it at Science Gallery, in Dublin this week.
3D printing Live says is a way to print ink or other material onto a base material that has texture, and one part of that almost always involves heating, which has proven to be an essential part of the process developed by Insects Au Gratin. Not only does heating a paste made of insects and flour cause it to be cooked, giving the result a bread like quality, but it kills any viruses or bacteria that might be present in either. Thus, the end result is a food product that is both highly nutritious and safe to eat. Live reports that it’s obviously also very economical.
One problem of course is that the printer runs on electricity, something that cannot be guaranteed in many areas where such a food might be sold or eaten. To address that, the group is working with other organizations that offer solar or water driven devices to generate electricity to run the device. Another problem of course is in capturing enough insects to make food from. That’s a problem several groups are hard at work on solving according to a separate video report from the BBC. At present, it appears the best approach is for groups to raise their own insects on farms rather than simply try to capture enough in the wild. Such farms would most likely focus on large insects that are found in the local area.
Any way you look at, it, and regardless of whether people shy away from the idea of eating bugs, it’s an idea whose time will likely come as world population continues to grow, land available for growing crops diminishes and global warming hints at many more bugs around us than ever before.