At his home in rural Costa Rica, biologist Federico Paniagua joins his family at the dining table to devour several types of insects that he raised on his farm and whose flavour he compares to potato chips.
The head of the University of Costa Rica’s Insects Museum decided three years ago to replace animal protein in his diet with crickets, ants, cockroaches, beetles and other insects – and wants to encourage others to do the same.“Insects are delicious,” he says at his farm in Sarchi, about 30 miles (50km) from the Central American country’s capital, San José.
“You can sit and watch a soap opera, watch the football game, do any activity with a plate full of insects. Eat them one by one, with a glass of soda … they’ll go down well,” says Paniagua.Especially in Asia and in Africa, the tiny creatures are touted as delicacies packed with vitamins, minerals and energy.
Paniagua’s wife, Gabriela Soto, prepares their meal by splashing oil in a frying pan, adding the farm-raised insects and topping them off with a dash of salt.
She then brings out several dishes to her young daughter, who reaches into a plate with her hands and munches fearlessly, and to her husband, who suggests a bit of lemon would enhance their flavour.
“They are going to taste like potato chips … you can eat basically a whole plate of these insects,” Paniagua says.
