At Singapore’s House of Seafood restaurant, the fish-head curry comes with a side of crunchy crickets, the tofu has bugs crawling out of it and the patrons cannot get enough.
The seaside restaurant is the first eatery to put insects on the menu after the Singapore Food Agency this month approved for human consumption 16 species ranging from crickets to grasshoppers, grubs and mealworms after two years of deliberation.
Crickets and other insects have long been enjoyed as street food in Southeast Asia, but not in the wealthy financial hub, where food imports come with strict restrictions for safety and hygiene purposes.
Photo: Reuters
Francis Ng, chief executive of House of Seafood, said customers love it when the dishes play up the insects, like that tofu dish he plated to look like bugs were crawling out of it, and a dish of glutinous rice balls studded with silkworms.
“It looks scarier so customers can film for their Tiktok,” said Ng, adding that his phone has been ringing off the hook with customers eager to book a tasting.
The restaurant has drafted a menu with 30 dishes that feature insects, which they can sell to the general public once their importers are approved by the food authority. For now, Ng is offering free samples.
Photo: Reuters
In 2019, Singapore said that it was aiming to produce 30 percent of its nutritional needs by 2030 instead of the current model where 90 percent of food is imports.
Insects could certainly help it move toward this goal, if people get over “the yuck factor,” said food security expert Paul Teng, an adjunct senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
“Most insects are almost all protein,” Teng said, adding that there needs to be local production to make this alternative protein source affordable.
“Getting people to accept insects in their diet is a challenge, but really, it’s a normal food item. Let’s do something about it to prepare the consumer for it,” he said. “Me personally, I have no problem eating insects.”
The UN has deemed bugs a sustainable source of protein to feed a global population estimated to swell to 9.7 billion by 2050, and global food security issues due to extreme weather and conflicts have also increased interest in the high-quality, economical nutrition that bugs provide.
In Singapore, all insects approved for human consumption must be farmed in a controlled environment and not harvested from the wild, and they cannot be fed contaminants such as manure or rotten food, the food agency says.
In tandem, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has been promoting the farming of insects for human consumption and animal feed, and there has been local interest in importing insects, but cost remains a barrier for now.
Ng said that insects make up 10 percent of his costs at the House of Seafood, and they are all imported.
“The price is definitely higher than eggs,” he said.
It is too early to tell if insects are to become a feature of the Singapore diet or whether demand would fizzle out as it has for fake meat products.
For now, some diners say they are happy to develop a taste for bugs.
“If they have a higher source of protein, why not? I’ll add it to my daily meal and daily food intake,” said Bregria Sim, a 23-year-old a logistics executive, adding that she would pay about S$40 (US$30) for the novelty dishes.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS