Survival

They’re nutritious and plentiful: that’s why insects could be the food of the future

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Entomophagy – the eating of insects

When Monty Python aired the sketch ‘Crunchy Frog’, inspired by the introduction of the Trade description Act of 1968, in which inspectors question the owner of the Whizzo Chocolate Company about the ingredients of his Quality Assortment, including the suspect confection ‘Cockroach Cluster’, they tapped into the taboo subject of eating insects, or entomophagy as it’s officially known. Later, shows like I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here added the revulsion element to the proceedings with the eating of live insects in the bushtucker trials, discontinued in 2019, after complaints of cruelty from animal rights groups.

Apart from the accidental consumption of insects, which I like to refer to as the ‘slug in lettuce’ moments, it’s fair to say that people in the western world have not embraced the idea of eating insects as part of a nutritional diet. However, and this might come as a shock to some, we’re already eating insects on a regular basis and have been for years. A certain amount of ‘insect material’ is allowed in food, since it causes us no harm. I won’t go into what foods contain insect parts, but it is a pretty long list. The truth of the matter is this – insects have been eaten for thousands of years in many countries around the world and continue to be eaten, and enjoyed, by two billion people. And everyone’s just fine!

There are so many reasons why we should all be eating insects. With an ever growing population and the need to produce food to feed it, insects could be a sustainable, environmentally friendly solution to fighting world hunger in the future. Farming insects would have less of a carbon footprint than the farming of cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry and could provide developing countries with a viable form of agriculture, since insects can be bred in a lot of different climates, many of which are unsuitable for traditional farming.

Then there’s the nutritional value of insects. They are packed full of protein, amino acids and antioxidants and are, not surprisingly, low in fat, making them a very healthy eating option. So what insects are edible? Well, there is a very large number, the most common being crickets; grasshoppers; mealworms (well, it’s in the name, isn’t it); scorpions and ants. This list is modest compared to the huge range of insects eaten on a daily basis in the developing world, including witchetty grubs, cicadas, giant water beetles and wasp eggs!

Sainsbury’s is the first supermarket in the UK to stock an insect food product, with the introduction in their snack range, of Eat Grub’s smoky BBQ crunchy roasted crickets! In addition, there are a growing number of restaurants that regularly include insects as part of their menus. One such establishment is Archipelago in London which has several insect based dishes on offer, including a dessert featuring chocolate-covered locusts. Not that far away from a Cockroach Cluster, I’d say. Monty Python as prophet. But we’re not laughing now!

 

 

 

 

Chernobyl: a chilling reminder

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How an HBO mini-series brought the horror back

Thirty-three years after it happened, it’s taken an HBO mini-series about the Chernobyl disaster to give a terrifying insight into what took place. The first episode was truly apocalyptic. I had to keep reminding myself that it was not a work of fiction – that this really happened. It was so tense, in places, that I found myself shouting at the tv screen – ‘Oh no, please don’t do that! You’re all going to die!’ By the end of the episode, I was in a state of complete nervous tension and there were still four more to go.

The thing is though, I don’t remember being that worried about it at the time. I was a lot younger and more naïve, yes, but I can’t help thinking that maybe it was because we were never told the full facts. Or, maybe, I trusted that everyone involved had it under control. However the brilliant cast, including Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgard and Emily Watson, convincingly depict a situation in which nothing, whatsoever, was under control. The Soviet Union did not even admit that a reactor had exploded until nearly three days after, when radiation from the disaster set off alarms at a nuclear power plant in Sweden.

What made it even more chilling for me is that, two months before it happened, in February 1986, I was involved with taking a group of Dorset students to Russia. It was a cultural trip and the only danger we felt was present was that one of our group of teenagers would forget the lessons we’d given them on Russian etiquette and upset the locals. Or that they might get arrested for breaking one of the many incomprehensible rules that were present in public places and enforced by armed soldiers. If we’d had Risk Assessment forms in those days, I doubt that a level 7 nuclear disaster would have been on it. And yet Moscow, where we were based, is only 850 kms from Chernobyl – too close when you’re dealing with a cloud of toxic emissions.

Ukrainian officials estimate that the land round the Chernobyl Plant will not be safe for permanent human settlement for another 20,000 years. Whether this an accurate figure or not, we will never know, but if the human race survives that long it will be the year 22019 (I assume that is how the date will be written). To give some idea of how far into the future this is, it’s worth going back in history 20,000 years. Then the earth was in the grip of the Ice Ages. A few thousand individuals eaked out an existence living in tribes and mammoths were still around.

After the incident, a concrete sarcophagus was built around the destroyed reactors. It contains 100kg of plutonium, with a half life of 245,000 years. If that sarcophagus collapses, it will be enough to poison 100 million people. Perhaps this sobering fact was what made them decide, in 2017, to enclose Reactor No. 4 with a vast steel shelter designed to prevent radiation leaks from the site. It will be airtight for 100 years. But what happens after that …?

Survival: a basic instinct

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“The instinct in humans and animals to do things that will prevent them from dying” – this no frills dictionary definition of the word ‘survival’ tells it like it is. So does this basic instinct, that has served humankind so well for millennia, still work for us in the 21st century? Of course, the answer is yes, but in an adapted way to suit the far more complex and sophisticated world that we live in. Although the environment has changed beyond recognition from the fight or flight days of our ancestors, human needs for survival haven’t. They remain constant – shelter, food and water, and clothing to protect our bodies from extremes of temperature and other hazards. However, it only takes an unexpected event or accident to throw a person out of their comfort zone and into survival mode.

At the end of last year, I broke my right wrist on holiday in Finland. Now I know that you can’t blame everything on climate change, but it did have a role to play in this. Usually in November, northern Finland (Lapland) is covered in a thick layer of powdery snow. However, in the week before we arrived, due to unprecedented high daytime temperatures, the snow had melted and then frozen in the sub-zero temperatures at night, resulting in solid sheets of ice everywhere. The choice was simple, stay inside and not venture out at all, or put crampons on your boots and take your chances. I did the latter! On the plus side, I did get to see the aurora on four nights – which was spectacular.

So there I was in a foreign country, in arctic conditions, with my right arm plastered up to my elbow. My first reaction was to burst out crying in an unashamed wave of self pity. However, after I’d got over the initial shock of what had happened and taken a few industrial strength painkillers, my survival instinct began to kick in. I realised that I needed to think about the situation in a calm and methodical way.

Being right-handed, a considerable number of things that I had previously taken for granted became a real problem. Most of the clothes that I’d brought with me became obsolete straightaway, as I was unable to get the plaster through the cuffs. This included my duck down coat, essential for surviving the freezing temperatures. Preparing and cutting up my food was impossible, as I couldn’t apply any pressure on my wrist. Trying to do this one-handed doesn’t work, I tried it many times. You need a knife and fork to get this right. At least I had a cabin for shelter, but I couldn’t light a fire.

In short, if I’d been on my own, I would have had to return home. However, even that would have been far from straightforward, trying to negotiate my luggage, getting in and out of vehicles and doing all the travel-like things that are difficult even if you have all your limbs intact. Instead I decided to stay the course with the help of my husband.

I reverted back to toddlerhood. Buttons and zips were done up for me. My food was cut up into bite-size pieces, or else, in a fit of frustration, I’d pick it up with my left hand, even in restaurants, people making allowances for me, seeing my predicament. It was surprisingly liberating to be excused the usual table manners. As for my clothes, I sacrificed a number of items by splitting the right arm seam. Most important, I discovered that I could still get my coat done up if I pushed my hand up to, but not through, the cuff.

So I survived. Well, of course I did. However, the whole experience made me give more thought to those with permanent disabilities who have to face these challenges every day of their lives and to the large number of people who, even in the 21st century, struggle to gain access to even the basic survival needs.