The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday said there has been no confirmation that lychee stink bugs are safe to eat and that the public should not ingest them.
The FDA’s warning came after the Forestry and Natural Conservation Agency’s Chiayi branch on April 9 demonstrated how to cook the bugs at an event titled “Bug-eating Kings” at the Chukou Nature Center on April 27.
The event showed participants how to turn insects into dishes, reflecting the potential of using insects’ rapid reproduction to address the food production crisis brought on by population growth and climate change, the forest agency said.
Photo courtesy of the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency Chiayi branch
Chiayi County Health Bureau Director Chao Wen-hua (趙紋華) said that bureau staff and FDA personnel went to the event after being notified by a member of the public about it.
It was later confirmed that no one at the event ate the bugs.
Lychee giant stink bugs were first spotted on Taiwan proper in 2009, and are now commonly found during the summer on trees in the soapberry family, including longans and lychees.
When disturbed, the bugs release a corrosive, stinky liquid in self-defense, which can burn through leaves and fruit and have become a growing problem for Taiwan’s longan and lychee farmers.
Although the forestry agency encouraged eating the pests as a way to control them, FDA Deputy Director-General Lin Chin-fu (林金富) on Friday said that lychee stink bugs are invasive pests, and there is no record to date that such bugs have been eaten in Taiwan.
Whether these bugs are safe to eat has not been confirmed, Lin said, and he urged the public not to eat the bugs to safeguard their health.
Lee Ting-chung (李定忠), deputy head of the forest agency’s Chiayi branch who promoted the idea of eating the bugs on April 9, said the FDA asked the center to adjust its cooking demonstration as only three kinds of insects are allowed to be eaten in Taiwan — bee pupae, silkworm pupae and a specific type of ant.
He said the lychee giant stink bug frying demonstration came at the end of the event and that participants were told not to eat insects that are not permitted by law to be consumed in Taiwan.
Lin said the demonstration might have contravened Article 15 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), adding that the FDA would remind agricultural units to be aware of the relevant regulations when organizing similar events in the future.
According to Article 15 of the Act, “foods or food additives that have never been provided for human consumption and proven to be harmless to human health, shall not be manufactured, processed, prepared, packaged, transported, stored, sold, imported, exported, presented as a gift or publicly displayed.”
Contravenors are subject to a maximum fine of NT$200 million (US$6.17 million), the article said.
National Chung Hsing University Department of Entomology associate professor Chuang Yi-yuan (莊益源) said that lychee giant stink bugs are edible, but people should be aware of the liquid they release.
National Taiwan University’s Department of Entomology emeritus professor Hsu Err-lieh (徐爾烈) said people who are allergic to arthropods should not eat insects.
Although lychee giant stink bugs would be a good source of protein, Hsu said that he would not encourage people to consume them, although it was still fine for the government to promote them if it wanted to, he added.
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