Bugs on the menu: A new joint opens in New York

Roasted grasshop­per? Fried bee lar­vae? Locust stew? Yes please.

We’ve seen bugs become increas­ingly pop­u­lar as a high nutri­ent, low-calorie pro­tein source over recent years. With a broad­en­ing of minds due to an increase in inter­na­tional travel and peo­ple eat­ing less meat due to high pric­ing and dis­ease out­breaks, the thought of adding insects to our diet has become a reality.

Numer­ous restau­rants around town have had bugs on the menu as an option for a few months now (they add a great crunch to sal­ads), but this week’s open­ing of new take­away joint BugOut NYC marks the first wholly insect-based menu the city has seen.

BugOut’s street take­away stand in New York has seen queues stretch­ing around cor­ners for chef and founder Ale­jan­dro Schwiez’s unique lunch options. His herb-fried drag­on­flies and melt-in-your-mouth but­ter cater­pil­lars have been the most pop­u­lar dishes.

Schwiez, founder of BugOut says he has been cook­ing bugs for years using spe­cial recipes which he describes as a fusion of Argen­tin­ian and Ger­man cuisine.

Mar­cel Dicke has been cred­ited with kick­ing off the bug eat­ing move­ment in the west­ern world after much work con­vinc­ing peo­ple of the ben­e­fits of eat­ing our 6 legged friends (see his TED Talk below). With global food sup­plies are run­ning low, he notes effi­ciency as a lead­ing pro­po­nent of eat­ing insects “If you take 10 kg of feed, you can get  1 kg of beef. Or you can get  9 kg of locust meat.” A very inter­est­ing thought when it comes to solv­ing the food crisis.

Don’t live in New York? No prob­lem, Schwiez says that the response has been so pos­i­tive that he plans to open fran­chises nationwide.

^{Image cred­its: Kent Wang,  Lucius Kwok}