Can edible grasshoppers and silkworm pupae be tasted by humans when prevented to see and smell these insects?
Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow, Research Institute of Luminous Organisms, Tokyo, Japan | Helina Hakkoc, Oulu University, Oulu, Fland
Out of 26 students (11 male, 15 female) that were blindfolded and held their noses, 14 correctly identified the taste of insects when given pieces of cheese, dried fish, beondaegi (commercially available Korean Bombyx mori silkworm pupae), inago (commercially available Japanese Oxya yezoensis grasshoppers) and white bread to taste. Eight identified one of the food insects and four failed to detect any. Of 11 students given a choice between beondaegi, inago and hachinoko (larval wasps of Vespula flaviceps) most students preferred the inago grasshoppers, three ranked the commercially available hachinoko first and one gave the top position to the beondaegi silkworm pupae. It is concluded that insects, per se, are not terribly easy to identify by taste alone. Given the well documented aversion of especially people of western cultural backgrounds to insects in food, our results suggest that insects processed into flour or pastes have a greater chance to be accepted by the consumer (as they cannot easily be identified by taste alone) than food that displays insect images on its packing.
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