New Book to Highlight Insects as “World’s Future Food”

07 Mar 2014 --- The presentation of The Insect Cookbook – Food for a Sustainable Planet on Monday 17 March is an important step to promote insects as the meat for the future in the Western world. The first copy will be presented to professor Louise O. Fresco, the future (as of July 1st) chairperson of the Board of Wageningen UR (University & Research centre).

The Insect Cookbook is the next step of Arnold van Huis, Henk van Gurp and Marcel Dicke on the path of globalising of entomophagy and showing that the intercontinental Western world can learn a lot from two billion people in Africa, South East Asia and Central America to address the protein problem of the 21st century. Food security is to a large extent a matter of sustainable production of animal proteins for the rapidly growing human population. Conventional protein sources will not be able to meet the needs. Insects provide an excellent contribution to the solution of the protein problem. The Insect Cookbook is an updated and expanded version of Het Insectenkookboek which appeared in Dutch in 2012. Het Insectenkookboek won the second prize at the prestigious Gourmand World Cookbook Award 2012 in Paris.

For The Insect Cookbook the authors have interviewed influential persons. In the book Kofi Annan (former secretary general of the United Nations) explains that education is essential to show the importance of insects as a durable source of animal proteins in the Western world. René Redzepi (top chef of the best restaurant in the world, Noma in Denmark) clarifies that insects provide special ingredients that make a unique contribution to western top cuisine. Herman Wijffels (former representative of the Netherlands at the World Bank) stresses that eating insects fits perfectly in the development of a circular economy. Currently, consumption of insects in many parts of the world concerns harvesting of insects from nature. In Thailand, the Netherlands and the United States insects are now farmed for human consumption. This is also covered by The Insect Cookbook.

The Insect Cookbook provides background information (which insect species are eaten, where and why), nutritional values, recipes, names of insect farms and interviews with politicians, chefs, insect farmers, food designers etc. The book is full with beautiful pictures in full colour. The interest of the American publisher Columbia University Press shows that the developments that started in Wageningen to promote insects as the protein source of the future have an important international resonance. Columbia University is one of the American top universities of the Ivy league and Columbia University Press has received many awards. An American newspaper once wrote that Wageningen is the epicentre of entomophagy (eating insects). This book will have a global distribution.