Insects are inching their way to becoming a menu item on European food tables, as the blower food safety regulator has protected meatworms for human food consumption.
Wednesday’s announcement means that grubs – actually beetle larvae – may soon be ground down and used as protein-rich flour to make pasta and bread, or consume whole in stir-fry and other dishes. is. Next steps include obtaining marketing and labeling approval and signing the European Food Safety Authority decision by the European Commission.
The ruling provides a lift for companies such as Micronutris, a French edible insect farm that filed the application, and other startups including AgriProtein of South Africa, Netherlands-based Protix, and another French company, Yensect, which produces a new farm with production Are making Capacity of more than 100,000 tons of bugs in a year.
The big question, perhaps, is whether people in Europe have long wanted to eat a popular snack in parts of Asia and Latin America, even if they are down in flour.
Giovanni Sogari, a researcher of social and consumption patterns at the University of Parma in Italy, said that many people may find it difficult at first. “There are cognitive reasons derived from our social and cultural experiences, the so-called ‘yuck factor’, which many Europeans think of protecting them from eating insects,” he said. “Such attitudes can change over time and risk.”
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