Elegant New Designer Cutlery Is Made for Eating Bugs

Now you can gobble insects without getting your hands grubby

September 27, 2016 9:00 am

Eating bugs is the future, they say. “They” being the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, who in a 2013 report urged the world to eat more insects in an effort to bolster food security and dampen traditional agriculture’s harm to the environment.

Entomophagy, the technical term for eating bugs, ranges from somewhat mild — crickets, grasshoppers and ants, to more adventurous — caterpillars, scorpions and tarantulas. And of course cockroach milk

Before you turn up your nose, consider: Insects are a common ingredient in cuisines from Latin America, Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Two billion people around the world already consume bugs, but we in the Western world are still a bit queasy at the so-called superfood.

To make the idea more, shall we say, palatable, designer Wataru Kobayashi has created BUG BUG a picnic set for entomophagy, including chopsticks and a stainless steel ‘bird’s beak” that you wear on your fingers. The set is designed to meet the needs of our changing diet in time for the predicted 2050 food crisis, which may see us looking not toward the garden bed for dinner but underneath it.

Image by Wataru Kobayashi and Mike Chino for Inhabitat for Inhabitat

As Inhabitat reports, “insects are widely available and take only 8–10% of the resources needed for the production of meat.” Interested? There’s a whole slew of buggy goods you can purchase on Amazon right now, if you aren’t chicken, ranging from novelty snacks to actual ingredients like flour and protein powders.

Outside magazine recently had a staff writer replace her usual protein intake with insects for an entire week; you can read her genuinely fascinating account of her experience here. No spoilers, but she does report that after just a couple days, she no longer felt there was anything weird or gross about her new diet. Guess we’re pretty adaptable after all.

The InsideHook Newsletter.

News, advice and insights for the most interesting person in the room.