Toasted Tenebrio Molitor...or maybe some chocolate-covered mealworms?

Tenebrio molitor, earth-shrimp, protein-packed...mealworms

The thought of eating insects is anathema to many people. However, I am exploring ways of how this barrier can be broken down by rearing my own tenebrio molitor and getting friends, family and work colleagues (and in future the general public) hooked...one at a time.

Many of us love the taste of a nice steak, pulled pork sandwich, a prawn curry or 
BBQ chicken. For some, a meal isn't complete without meat but it may be important for this culture to change in future. Our reliance on forms of meat that are hungry for energy, water, space and that create environment issues of their own such as greenhouse gas emissions means that we have to think about how much of it we consume.

As greater numbers of people populate our planet, and millions join the privileged position of being able to buy more meat, we have to question how much of the Earth's surface we want to dedicate to the rearing of meat. It already stands at something in the region of 30% when including grains grown for animal feed. 

Refocussing our attention on the oceans has already caused visible strains on that ecosystem and so isn't an easy solution either.

I have been learning that the buggy alternative can be tasty as well as making sense.
Edible insects take up much less water, energy and space than do their more common counterparts cows, sheep, pigs and chickens. 

My own Tenebrio Molitor have given me a chance to test different ways that people may enjoy their protein-packed and nutritious offerings.

This week I tried a couple of approaches that I think may excite two different potential groups:

Chocolate-covered mealworms for kids and adventurous, sweet-toothed adults and...

Chocolate-covered mealworms

Ground, toasted mealworms for people that will enjoy the unique, yet familiar taste...akin to shrimp paste and toasted sesame seeds while also being completely indistinguishable as every having been an insect.

Toasted Tenebrio Molitor for grinding

Ground-mealworm powder: tastes like shrimp paste and sesame seeds

Both are easy to do:

Take your mealworms, wash them, put them onto a tray and stick them in the oven on a low heat (about 100 degrees C). Take out the ones for chocolate after an hour and leave the others for longer - I let them brown a little, which gave them a great toasted flavour.

Melt some chocolate over boiling water with a teaspoon of coconut oil, then dip in the mealworms that were taken out first and place on greaseproof paper. Cool in the fridge.

The toasted mealworms, I simply ground down in a pestle and mortar as shown. The taste was great but you could season. I'm going to use mine in anything you would normally use something like shrimp paste - so mostly Asian cooking. However, I will be able to enjoy knowing exactly where they came from and the nutritional boost they are giving me.

Friends have enjoyed both the chocolate-covered mealworms and the ground mealworms. The reassuring thing is that they have often tried to find the familiar taste that they have without being able to quite put a finger on it. The Tenebrio Molitor have a unique flavour that isn't dissimilar to a number of things we eat already...that's why I think they could appear on a plate near you soon - even if you don't recognise them.

Mealworm mince pies and the invasion of the flies...

Too excited to wait until I had harvested enough to use extensively, I fried up my first small harvest of mealworms and tasted them.

I would describe them as tasting akin to a peanut-flavoured popcorn. Very light with a distinct taste of their own and almost like a shrimp in terms of texture. I was very happy with how they taste on their own; I had expected them to be bland and require plenty of flavour to be added. However, the simple, lightly fried product was great. 

Fried mealworms - tasted like peanut popcorn

To get into the seasonal spirit though, I decided to add them into some mince pies. The recipe for these is below and is a great twist on the classic festive treat:

1¼ lb (560 g) mincemeat Handful of mealworms

12 oz (350 g) plain flour

6 oz (150 g) butter

pinch of salt

For the top:

a little milk

icing sugar

Preparing the mince pies

Beautiful mealworm mince pies, complete with pastry mealworm

These mince pies went down well at work and with friends as they tasted  great and the mealworms were largely unseen. I'm hoping that this introduction will make any future mealworm consumption less of a psychological hurdle. More recipes and response from people I test them on to come in future weeks...


Meanwhile, outside, in the box that I had let stay there to see what happened to the larvae in the cold, I found a disturbing scenario had evolved.

Looking into the box, I could see numerous small flies crawling over the oats and rotting veg. On closer inspection into the detritus I found alarming numbers of fly larvae. They are quite distinct from the mealworms - they start as pale, slightly fatter mealworms but are akin to a worm in the way they move (the mealworms move like beetles with a long body). The older fly larvae are redder and resemble a true worm even more.

The invasive fly larvae - younger white and older red specimens

Due to this invasion I have left this box to act as compost and will use it in the Spring for fertilising.

In the news, there was an interesting article in the Huffington Post about what the author thinks, for vegans, is the "obligation" to eat insects due to the impact of growing crops on animals.

Is it cold in here?

It is getting cold outside here in the UK and the mealworms resident in the couple of boxes that I have out there may struggle to develop outside of their comfort zone of circa 30 degrees. However, I will find it useful to see just how slowly they grow compared to the ones in the toasty airing cupboard.

I have actually taken great pleasure in watching the 'dust'-like larvae grow into the more familiar "worm" (they are still six-legged insects) stage. Some time-lapse footage helps show the different maturity of the larvae.

The less fortunate mealworms that I have started harvesting will be finding it exceptionally cold in the freezer.

In the next month I will be able to use those mealworms in recipes that I have been given by my work colleagues in the highly recommended 'The Insect Cookbook'. I will whip up such dishes as insect Dim Sum; Chili con (insect) Carne; insect vols-au-vent and mealworm cookies. I have been doing the groundwork with friends, family and work colleagues to prepare them for acting as my guinea pigs for which types of offerings are the easiest to get used to, taste the best, look the nicest and basically resemble most familiar meals.

I see it as my task to try and find some easily-accessible routes for the more squeamish side of us to explore eating insects. If you have any ideas of how you'd like to try mealworms then drop a comment below.

There have actually been good signs that the main barrier to the development of insects as a foodstuff in Europe - our psychological aversion - could be less of a problem than predicted. A recent survey shows that the population in parts of Western Europe (in Belgium) are receptive to the idea of eating insects if they are integrated with familiar flavours.

And recently in the US they held a Bugs and Beer  event in San Diego - a great way to try insects, while enjoying a tipple (or eight!).

Be the change that you want to see...

After a trip to Africa with work I have come home to find a thriving group of mealworms in one of my boxes. Although this box has been outside in increasingly cold weather, I think that the amount of food I have been dropping in there has allowed some of the multitude of mealies in there to mature to a decent size. There was even one that had reached chrysalis stage already - highlighting the level of attention they need for separation.

First Mealworm reared by my own hands

I have taken these larger larvae out of the bigger box and separated them into a smaller one in the hope that they can mature even more rapidly.

Within a week or so I will have enough to start using them as food!

My trip to Africa reinvigorated my belief in the need for everyone to live the changes that they believe are needed in society; whatever it may be. There is no use in waiting for others to take the lead, thinking about it but not acting on it, or simply forgetting about the issue for an easy life. We have to take responsibility for our actions and if we believe in something, set an example for others.

That is why I am doing this. I believe that the world will need to find alternative sources of protein in order to help provide everyone with it without irreparably damaging our natural environment. I'm just exploring one such way.

It's good to see other people in Bristol acting on their beliefs about food waste: SKIPCHEN has just opened serving only skip-salvaged food with a mission to put themselves out of business by highlighting the problem of wastage in our food system.

Slowly, slowly...

It has been a slow few weeks since I last posted. I have had to try a number of different things to try and work out how to get the mealworms to mature faster including putting in more food, keeping them in darker and warmer climes.

The mealworm life-cycle can be anything from 3 months to 6 months. However, I think that I may have too many in too small a place - they swarm any fruit/veg that I put in but I'm worried that they don't have enough space. I am breaking some smaller groups out to try and encourage growth.

Hundreds/thousands of mealworms swarm any fruit put in with them

Gallingly, I have seen some in my recycling bin (transferred there in vessels of old fruit that needed to be removed I think) that are even more mature than the ones that I am rearing directly and it goes to show that the environment and space might be key.

Lots of people ask me regularly about them - there is definitely public interest; more than I thought there might be. I think it is indicative of the fact that Bristol is especially fertile ground for new ideas and more sustainable ways of doing things.

As soon as I get some large worms I plan to develop some great-tasting food to share with everyone that has asked me about them and help turn people onto the idea of insects as a viable alternative to other protein sources.

Another great insect-focused caught my eye recently too - check it out. Entomophagy is the future: Insects Are Food.

The eggs, the dust and the mealworms

It appears that the beetles have been busy...

I have to say that I didn't really see the eggs that they had laid, but I started noticing dust on the side of my boxes that I had considered to be mould.

As I looked at it closely I realised that the dust was moving and that I had finally bred my first mealworms. 

What I thought was dust was actually the infant mealworms.

Over the next few days I started seeing more and more of them, moving like one large, swarming organism and surrounding any bits of veg in the box. Their movements are quite mesmerising:

However, soon after receiving these new arrivals, I noticed the level of condensation in the boxes getting worse and worse. One day there seemed to be very little movement in the box and, I think, a number of mealworms had died - most probably of suffocation.

To deal with this development I bought some hessian to cover the top of the box (and help keep out roaming infants who can climb up the side of the box) and allow more air flow. This has seemed to solve the problem.

I think that I will also need to monitor how well the infants develop in different-sized boxes as there may be too much competition for food.

So all-in-all an interesting few days. Recommendations are: its probably not dust that you see - they're mealworms, keep good ventilation - especially when their numbers increase, and the amount of space and food offered will determine the number that will mature.

The speed with which the mealworms mature will determine when I can start cooking with these protein packages. I also plan to split them up into groups to see how different foods, and environments may affect their growth and taste... all exciting stuff to come!

And when you think that 38% of the world’s total land area was used for agriculture in 2007, the idea of using these space and energy-efficient creatures becomes more and more appealing.

With a little help from my friends...the beetles

I have found that breeding insects is a fascinating process, although it also takes some time (one of the current barriers to mass production of insects as a protein source) as the need to split the chrysalises from the mealworms and then any beetles from the chrysalises.

Each box has been laid with oats and - in the boxes for mealworms and beetles - some veg (I have been using leftovers such as offcuts of carrots, ginger, broccoli etc. as well as apple cores, and the remains of grapefruit after breakfast). 

The shop-bought mealworms have gradually been metamorphosing one-by-one and I have had to pick each pale, shape and put them into another box and wait, and check and wait.... and within a week or so I have got beetles!

These little beauties are now going to help provide me with my own generation of mealworms that I can feed and eat. In order for them to lay eggs I have also added egg boxes to their box, which apparently act as a favourite place for beetles to lay them.

The transformation from mealworm, via their chrysalis into a beetle must take so much energy - the larger exoskeleton and body must require a lot of protein - hence the mealworms are packing a lot in before undergoing the process.

I'll be keeping my eyes out for eggs and then my first generation of mealworms. Keeping them in the airing cupboard at as close to 30 degrees as possible is the best environment for them and the heat that we've had here in the UK has been helping towards that end.

I know that eating insects is going to be a big step for some people (unless we can start sneaking them into our food without people knowing a la any sweet with crispy shell, made from cochilea), so - if you want to learn more about how you can eat more sustainably without taking that plunge (yet!) then take a look at the Sustainable Food Trust site.

Come get your protein here!!!

An estimated 2 billion people worldwide eat insects as part of their diet. Are these people crazy or do they have a point?

From promoting sustainability to wanting to put on muscle, insects may be an answer to a lot of our problems. 

Taking a look at some of the stats suggests that those 2 billion people may have a point, although they could still be a little crazy.

For example, the composition of unsaturated omega-3 and six fatty acids in mealworms is comparable with that in fish (and higher than in cattle and pigs), and the protein, vitamin and mineral content of mealworms is similar to that in fish and meat.

The below table from the FAO shows how favourably insects rate on in protein content against other animals:

Besides this, many insects are rich in micronutrients such as copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, selenium and zinc, as well as riboflavin, pantothenic acid, biotin and, in some cases, folic acid.

So even a quick overview can suggest that insects are of great nutritional value - certainly not deficient compared to their more common counterparts.

The clincher for me is that for the same amount of feed and far less water, space and energy, you could get four times as much cricket as you could beef. And if you want pure protein for building muscle, why buy whey when you can get a more well rounded, natural source?

While I haven't started rearing any crickets, my mealworms have started metamorphosing, which is fascinating. My long, thin mealworms have started turning into what looks like mini aliens from the film Independence Day:

  The pupating mealworms will turn into beetles before mating and laying eggs to hatch as more mealworms

I will keep you updated on their progress as I should start seeing beetles soon. And fear not - the protein rich meal-worms are eaten before pupation.

In the meantime check out this great video from the BBC on insects as part of our future food system.

What do you need to rear mealworms?

The idea of this blog is to share my experiences of rearing insects and help inspire people to look at our food in a different way in order to tackle the worldwide issue of food security.

There will be plenty of news, research, and recipes to come, but firstly: how do you rear mealworms?

In order to keep mealworms you need (a version of) the following:

- Three containers
- Oats
- Moisture-carrying food e.g. Carrot
- Newspaper/card and egg cartons

Three containers are needed because there are three phases in the darkling beetle life-cycle and each phase will require a new container. Each container should contain some oats.

The mealworms live in and eat the oats, while the veg/fruit provides some moisture. The container in which the mealworms will grow needs to be supplemented with paper/card as the mealworms like to stay under cover.
The mealworms will, after a while, transform into a pupating state. The pupae need to be separated from the mealworms in case they are fed upon by the mealworms. They will not feed or move during this phase. There should be oats and a small amount of other food for when the pupae morph into beetles.

The beetles will emerge from the pupae and also then need to be separated in order to prevent them feeding on the pupae. The final container should contain oats and other food and egg cartons. Female beetles will lay eggs in the oats and in the carton and eventually tiny mealworms will hatch from these.

There are plenty of places online from which you can order live insects as they are used widely as pet food and fish bait. These can provide the base for your stock.

When a rustling box labelled CAUTION: LIVE INSECTS arrived at my workplace the other day I had a lot of comments, but the mealworms are in their new home and the games can begin...

Why eat insects? One man and his worms

My name is Sean McGough and I’m about to start rearing insects. Firstly mealworms and then crickets. I’m relatively normal, studied History, work at a charity called TreeAid after working as a Project Manager for an engineering consultancy and I have no prior experience in rearing insects.

Why? I have been asked why more times than I can count – normally accompanied by a shrivelled face of disgust. “For food” I will respond. And then go on to explain that insects could be the future for our high-protein driven food chain, which currently helps cause untold problems.

While travelling in 2012 and 2013 I saw the destruction caused by worldwide demand for certain products. In Borneo, the rainforest has dwindled to small pockets and corridors in which animals like orangutans struggle to survive because of the demand for palm oil. In Bolivia, the dry forests of the Chaco have been cut and burned to create space for soy production, which is used to feed UK cattle, poultry and pigs. And in Brazil cattle ranchers have cleared huge swathes of forest to rear our meat. These backdrops acted as a constant reminder that the decisions we make at home can leave a far-reaching environmental footprint.

A report from the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), 'Edible insects

Future prospects for food and feed security', published in 2013, followed on from quite a lot of press about the potential of using insects as a foodstuff. The information coming from the UN and the experience of eating insects (crickets, silkworms and ants) while abroad led me to believe that this really could be the future of food. Insects offer a more sustainable approach than other sources due to their ability to produce more protein while taking up less, space, water, food and energy. They can also be really tasty.

Crickets fried in salt and chilli. Hanoi, Vietnam

I am taking this seriously and ordered some fresh, live mealworms from an online shop.

In future this could be a huge business - hopefully one that helps reduce our consumption of destructive sources of protein.

And I will share as much as I can on here for anyone that takes a passing interest or decides that they want to rear any insects - be it for fun, pet food, to feed the birds or to learn more about the future of food!