so I’m pretty lucky I get to travel
quite a bit I get to travel to some of
the greatest cities in the world one
thing I notice every time I travel to
these cities is that they seems to be
getting bigger and bigger and bigger and
actually by 2050 the global population
is going to reach 9 billion people now
that’s 2 billion more people on the
earth than there are today so these
cities are actually growing upward and
outwards to accommodate businesses and
homeowners and these sprawling city
scapes have a lot more people living in
them they need a lot more land for
construction and those people need a
greater sources of food production and
so by 2050 the same year that will have
9 billion people living on the planet
we’ll also need to increase our food
production by 60% now land for
agricultural use is actually depleting
and it’s depleting quickly so it’s
becoming increasingly difficult to
Saurus natural raw sustainable food and
by the end of the century the average
global sea level is going to rise 7 to
23 inches 7 to 23 doesn’t sound like a
huge number but if we consider the fact
that half of the world’s population
actually lived within 37 miles of the
sea and three-quarters of the world’s
largest cities are located along coastal
regions according to the United Nations
it’s a pretty significant number and sea
levels actually on the East Coast of the
United States rise three to four times
faster according to the United Nations
than anywhere else in the world and
considering the latest political move to
withdraw the United States from the
Paris agreement that’s a little bit
worrisome but unfortunately the meat and
dairy industries are one of the biggest
drivers of pollution and climate change
and as countries like China begin to
adopt a more westernized diet and their
cities grow large the demand for meat
increases and so that puts an even
bigger strain on our environment
in a world driven by capitalism our
lives and environments such as the
cities that we live in force us to
consider convenience and convenience in
the shape of this highly processed
fast-food now we all hear about it we
know about it we’re told about it we
read about it the processed food like
this can contribute to higher risks of
type-2 diabetes heart disease obesity
and what’s even scarier it’s the fact
the traces of additives and toxins that
are found in cleaning agents are often
detected in food like this now we’re
eating that and we’re putting it into
our bodies and ahead into the
environment so what I’m trying to say to
everybody is that we need a more
sustainable solution to help feed the
world for us living in Western society
we’re not just faced with these wicked
problems right wicked problems being
population overgrowth we shouldn’t
climate change
poor health and well-being we’re
actively contributing to us and so we
need smarter better ways to produce food
quick show of hands who here grew up on
a farm couple of people got money okay
well I didn’t I didn’t grow up on a farm
but my uncle was a farmer and so I spent
a lot of my childhood I’m on a farm
pretending to be a farmer
I’m from Tullamore can’t see awfully in
the middle of Ireland it’s home to
Tullamore gee whiskey and total more
Agricultural Show the agricultural shows
held once a year and it brings thousands
of people together for one day brings
farmers and their livestock together for
a day of livestock trading
exhibitions and competitions and so the
agricultural sector is something I’ve
been exposed to all my life I totally
understand the importance of its
importance of the sector to our culture
and heritage here in Ireland but
actually to everywhere else in the world
I’m pretty sure it’s also a sin to sit
down at a dinner table in an art
household but I like the leg or the rind
or a belly of some animal
I’m pretty sure that is a sin but if we
actually zoom out of that so matter of
what we know today traditional livestock
around the world occupy seventy percent
of all farm lands and considering our
earlier points about meat and dairy
industries being one of the biggest
drivers of pollution and agricultural
lands is depleting that’s bloody
terrifying and so four years ago while I
was studying design at the Institute of
Art Design Technology IAT teach us at
the Dublin I kind of set out to discover
through design a more sustainable
solution or better better answer to
these wicked problems right these big
global issues in relation to food and I
stumbled across what I thought at the
time was an unlikely alternative to
conventional meat conventional meat
being
beef pork chicken what I stumbled across
was this guy yeah yes this is a cricket
it’s an insect and and I heard murmurs
here to my right and you’re probably
thinking something that I thought at the
time no thank you
I’d rather not eat this thank you very
much and when I learned about the term
entomophagy which is the practice of
eating insects I absolutely did not want
to sit down to a place of crickets or
worm and I didn’t know anybody who
wanted to do that either but considering
all of these looming issues these big
problems I was really intrigued and so I
continued my research and in the same
year that I started my project 2013 the
Food and Agricultural organization
published this report this reporting tab
entitles edible insects set out to
assess the viability of insects as a
means to end world hunger and
surprisingly to me when I read this
report three facts reveal themselves one
edible insects actually sustain and
improve many local diets around the
world because the high nutritional value
of many of the species Western society
us we’re not totally averse to eating
insects while they’re not readily
available in
the local supermarket just yes they are
accessible and finally edible insects
provide business opportunities in the
mini livestock sector and so they
encourage and promote economic growth if
we look even closer at insects we can
learn that they convert organic waste
such as leaves vegetables fruit pulp
into edible protein for human
consumption
they also require far less utilities for
production such as electricity water
land usage than traditional livestock
such as cattle they also release less
greenhouse gases so for one pound of
protein from say mealworm it has a
greenhouse gas footprint one percent as
large as protein from cattle and finally
insects like grasshoppers crickets
mealworm very high in protein but also
high in iron and calcium very low in
fats and saturated fats so they’re
healthy for you but facts are facts and
oil facts can be convincing you’re
probably wondering well who actually
eats these right if you get a traveler
if you have traveled to places in China
Thailand South America of Mexico you’ll
see street vendors frying roasting
selling crickets grasshoppers locusts
mealworm trenchless scorpions even and
they don’t do that I had a novelty and
they don’t do it because the only food
they have they do because edible insects
provide over 2 billion people around the
world but the nutrients they need as
part of their daily diet and they happen
that’s the case for over Tysons of years
and so for me to truly understand the
value in the benefits of eating insects
I had to try it myself
and so I started to cook with insects I
started to eat them and I started to
share them out with my friends and
family and here’s some examples of some
recipes that I I made at the beginning
of this research few years ago right so
we’ve got an egg omelet with Weaver ants
a stir-fry with sago worm and something
really funny happened to me you know my
initial reaction this kind of
fearfulness quickly disappears that’s
shock value completely waned as I
started to explore and experiment with
this food and I started to eat us and so
I started to think well how do i scale
that I had how do I actually introduce
that to my demographic my community and
other people in Western society in a
society where it’s considered a taboo a
cultural taboo to eat something like
this I mean for many of us creatures
such as insects that they belong in the
ground right there the creatures of the
Earth’s of dark damp corners and so I
needed to break down those barriers this
was something that I heard when I
started to introduce this concept to my
choosers my classmates and my friends
when I see the whole body and I just
can’t do it
right and so our perception and you know
what we do our reactions they’re
psychologically driven it’s it’s very
much a mind over matter situation when
it comes to eating insects and so I was
curious about this how do we actually
overcome our kind of fears the visual
component is so compelling actually
seeing the insect is so powerful but not
in a very positive way as far as I was
concerned and so I continued to
experiment right I continued to explore
but in new forms and this time there
were no squirms or Quivers this side of
the audience or anywhere else this time
I started to explore in this form and
remember that cricket I showed you at
the beginning
that’s essentially him grind down into a
spoonful of cricket powder cricket
protein private powder and protein it’s
an essential compound of our diet we all
no need to eat protein and this is an
alternative to conventional meat such as
protip pork beef chicken and we get this
out of crickets pan for pan gram for
gram crickets and other insects actually
provides similar sometimes more protein
and natural protein than what we were
eating currently and so I started to
bake quarters I started to make things
like breads this is an oat and walnut
bread I was really surprised by the
versatility and the accessibility of
cricket powder has a sort of nutty
chocolaty aroma and flavor
it’s a acts as a substitute or an
of protein energy bites one of my
favorite things to make purely raw
natural ingredients fruits no cricket
powder high in protein really big hits
at events and with friends and so I
started to know the change in reaction
to people who I was presenting this to
and people were saying well why wouldn’t
I eat this it’s delicious and healthy so
I would present the usual fact so tell
my story as I’ve told it today around
quite logical to consider insects as a
new food for us in Western society but
when I presented it as something
familiar that something that people
maybe see in the health food store or
the local supermarket then I wasn’t so
difficult and was easier to communicate
people got it they understood and they
wanted more and so there’s a movement
happening across Europe and across
America for startups in the food
innovation industry are actually selling
they’re producing edible insect goods
and treats energy bars pasta and other
products all in an effort to convince us
to introduce insects to our daily diet
Alex Atala
he’s a head chef of Dom in Sao Paulo of
fine dining restaurants he actually
features one of his dishes that has ants
in it
in one of his episodes on chef’s table
on Netflix Noma Michelin star restaurant
in Denmark the renowned for the research
in entomophagy right so again the
practice of eating insects you’ll often
find insects on their their menu and so
if we take a second to consider that
take a second to think about where we
are as a global populations global
society in relation to eating eating
bugs we know that they’re served up for
hundreds of dollars to Elise curious
adventurous hormones and fine dining
restaurants around the world developing
communities edible insects provide them
with the nutrients they need every
single day over two billion people but
here Western society for us who are
responsible for urban development Mouse
deforestation pollution
industrialization we have somehow
fallen behind in adopting this this food
supply now we have a responsibility to
pay attention to these facts and
consider these alternatives and the onus
is on us to make a positive change and
so if insects can convert organic waste
into edible protein require less
utilities such as electricity water and
land reduce carbon emissions relative to
traditional livestock they’re healthy
delicious and fun then why are we not
doing it already and so they’re not only
scientifically proven to provide us with
the nutrients that we need they also
provide business opportunities in the
food innovation and development sector
and so they provide opportunities for
rural and urban areas communities all
across the world I actually believe that
if we work together to overcome cultural
taboos associated with eating insects we
could create a healthier society and
happier planets and so on that note I
would like to welcome you all to join me
at the break and try some edible insects
for yourself and I’d love to hear your
feedback thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
quite a bit I get to travel to some of
the greatest cities in the world one
thing I notice every time I travel to
these cities is that they seems to be
getting bigger and bigger and bigger and
actually by 2050 the global population
is going to reach 9 billion people now
that’s 2 billion more people on the
earth than there are today so these
cities are actually growing upward and
outwards to accommodate businesses and
homeowners and these sprawling city
scapes have a lot more people living in
them they need a lot more land for
construction and those people need a
greater sources of food production and
so by 2050 the same year that will have
9 billion people living on the planet
we’ll also need to increase our food
production by 60% now land for
agricultural use is actually depleting
and it’s depleting quickly so it’s
becoming increasingly difficult to
Saurus natural raw sustainable food and
by the end of the century the average
global sea level is going to rise 7 to
23 inches 7 to 23 doesn’t sound like a
huge number but if we consider the fact
that half of the world’s population
actually lived within 37 miles of the
sea and three-quarters of the world’s
largest cities are located along coastal
regions according to the United Nations
it’s a pretty significant number and sea
levels actually on the East Coast of the
United States rise three to four times
faster according to the United Nations
than anywhere else in the world and
considering the latest political move to
withdraw the United States from the
Paris agreement that’s a little bit
worrisome but unfortunately the meat and
dairy industries are one of the biggest
drivers of pollution and climate change
and as countries like China begin to
adopt a more westernized diet and their
cities grow large the demand for meat
increases and so that puts an even
bigger strain on our environment
in a world driven by capitalism our
lives and environments such as the
cities that we live in force us to
consider convenience and convenience in
the shape of this highly processed
fast-food now we all hear about it we
know about it we’re told about it we
read about it the processed food like
this can contribute to higher risks of
type-2 diabetes heart disease obesity
and what’s even scarier it’s the fact
the traces of additives and toxins that
are found in cleaning agents are often
detected in food like this now we’re
eating that and we’re putting it into
our bodies and ahead into the
environment so what I’m trying to say to
everybody is that we need a more
sustainable solution to help feed the
world for us living in Western society
we’re not just faced with these wicked
problems right wicked problems being
population overgrowth we shouldn’t
climate change
poor health and well-being we’re
actively contributing to us and so we
need smarter better ways to produce food
quick show of hands who here grew up on
a farm couple of people got money okay
well I didn’t I didn’t grow up on a farm
but my uncle was a farmer and so I spent
a lot of my childhood I’m on a farm
pretending to be a farmer
I’m from Tullamore can’t see awfully in
the middle of Ireland it’s home to
Tullamore gee whiskey and total more
Agricultural Show the agricultural shows
held once a year and it brings thousands
of people together for one day brings
farmers and their livestock together for
a day of livestock trading
exhibitions and competitions and so the
agricultural sector is something I’ve
been exposed to all my life I totally
understand the importance of its
importance of the sector to our culture
and heritage here in Ireland but
actually to everywhere else in the world
I’m pretty sure it’s also a sin to sit
down at a dinner table in an art
household but I like the leg or the rind
or a belly of some animal
I’m pretty sure that is a sin but if we
actually zoom out of that so matter of
what we know today traditional livestock
around the world occupy seventy percent
of all farm lands and considering our
earlier points about meat and dairy
industries being one of the biggest
drivers of pollution and agricultural
lands is depleting that’s bloody
terrifying and so four years ago while I
was studying design at the Institute of
Art Design Technology IAT teach us at
the Dublin I kind of set out to discover
through design a more sustainable
solution or better better answer to
these wicked problems right these big
global issues in relation to food and I
stumbled across what I thought at the
time was an unlikely alternative to
conventional meat conventional meat
being
beef pork chicken what I stumbled across
was this guy yeah yes this is a cricket
it’s an insect and and I heard murmurs
here to my right and you’re probably
thinking something that I thought at the
time no thank you
I’d rather not eat this thank you very
much and when I learned about the term
entomophagy which is the practice of
eating insects I absolutely did not want
to sit down to a place of crickets or
worm and I didn’t know anybody who
wanted to do that either but considering
all of these looming issues these big
problems I was really intrigued and so I
continued my research and in the same
year that I started my project 2013 the
Food and Agricultural organization
published this report this reporting tab
entitles edible insects set out to
assess the viability of insects as a
means to end world hunger and
surprisingly to me when I read this
report three facts reveal themselves one
edible insects actually sustain and
improve many local diets around the
world because the high nutritional value
of many of the species Western society
us we’re not totally averse to eating
insects while they’re not readily
available in
the local supermarket just yes they are
accessible and finally edible insects
provide business opportunities in the
mini livestock sector and so they
encourage and promote economic growth if
we look even closer at insects we can
learn that they convert organic waste
such as leaves vegetables fruit pulp
into edible protein for human
consumption
they also require far less utilities for
production such as electricity water
land usage than traditional livestock
such as cattle they also release less
greenhouse gases so for one pound of
protein from say mealworm it has a
greenhouse gas footprint one percent as
large as protein from cattle and finally
insects like grasshoppers crickets
mealworm very high in protein but also
high in iron and calcium very low in
fats and saturated fats so they’re
healthy for you but facts are facts and
oil facts can be convincing you’re
probably wondering well who actually
eats these right if you get a traveler
if you have traveled to places in China
Thailand South America of Mexico you’ll
see street vendors frying roasting
selling crickets grasshoppers locusts
mealworm trenchless scorpions even and
they don’t do that I had a novelty and
they don’t do it because the only food
they have they do because edible insects
provide over 2 billion people around the
world but the nutrients they need as
part of their daily diet and they happen
that’s the case for over Tysons of years
and so for me to truly understand the
value in the benefits of eating insects
I had to try it myself
and so I started to cook with insects I
started to eat them and I started to
share them out with my friends and
family and here’s some examples of some
recipes that I I made at the beginning
of this research few years ago right so
we’ve got an egg omelet with Weaver ants
a stir-fry with sago worm and something
really funny happened to me you know my
initial reaction this kind of
fearfulness quickly disappears that’s
shock value completely waned as I
started to explore and experiment with
this food and I started to eat us and so
I started to think well how do i scale
that I had how do I actually introduce
that to my demographic my community and
other people in Western society in a
society where it’s considered a taboo a
cultural taboo to eat something like
this I mean for many of us creatures
such as insects that they belong in the
ground right there the creatures of the
Earth’s of dark damp corners and so I
needed to break down those barriers this
was something that I heard when I
started to introduce this concept to my
choosers my classmates and my friends
when I see the whole body and I just
can’t do it
right and so our perception and you know
what we do our reactions they’re
psychologically driven it’s it’s very
much a mind over matter situation when
it comes to eating insects and so I was
curious about this how do we actually
overcome our kind of fears the visual
component is so compelling actually
seeing the insect is so powerful but not
in a very positive way as far as I was
concerned and so I continued to
experiment right I continued to explore
but in new forms and this time there
were no squirms or Quivers this side of
the audience or anywhere else this time
I started to explore in this form and
remember that cricket I showed you at
the beginning
that’s essentially him grind down into a
spoonful of cricket powder cricket
protein private powder and protein it’s
an essential compound of our diet we all
no need to eat protein and this is an
alternative to conventional meat such as
protip pork beef chicken and we get this
out of crickets pan for pan gram for
gram crickets and other insects actually
provides similar sometimes more protein
and natural protein than what we were
eating currently and so I started to
bake quarters I started to make things
like breads this is an oat and walnut
bread I was really surprised by the
versatility and the accessibility of
cricket powder has a sort of nutty
chocolaty aroma and flavor
it’s a acts as a substitute or an
of protein energy bites one of my
favorite things to make purely raw
natural ingredients fruits no cricket
powder high in protein really big hits
at events and with friends and so I
started to know the change in reaction
to people who I was presenting this to
and people were saying well why wouldn’t
I eat this it’s delicious and healthy so
I would present the usual fact so tell
my story as I’ve told it today around
quite logical to consider insects as a
new food for us in Western society but
when I presented it as something
familiar that something that people
maybe see in the health food store or
the local supermarket then I wasn’t so
difficult and was easier to communicate
people got it they understood and they
wanted more and so there’s a movement
happening across Europe and across
America for startups in the food
innovation industry are actually selling
they’re producing edible insect goods
and treats energy bars pasta and other
products all in an effort to convince us
to introduce insects to our daily diet
Alex Atala
he’s a head chef of Dom in Sao Paulo of
fine dining restaurants he actually
features one of his dishes that has ants
in it
in one of his episodes on chef’s table
on Netflix Noma Michelin star restaurant
in Denmark the renowned for the research
in entomophagy right so again the
practice of eating insects you’ll often
find insects on their their menu and so
if we take a second to consider that
take a second to think about where we
are as a global populations global
society in relation to eating eating
bugs we know that they’re served up for
hundreds of dollars to Elise curious
adventurous hormones and fine dining
restaurants around the world developing
communities edible insects provide them
with the nutrients they need every
single day over two billion people but
here Western society for us who are
responsible for urban development Mouse
deforestation pollution
industrialization we have somehow
fallen behind in adopting this this food
supply now we have a responsibility to
pay attention to these facts and
consider these alternatives and the onus
is on us to make a positive change and
so if insects can convert organic waste
into edible protein require less
utilities such as electricity water and
land reduce carbon emissions relative to
traditional livestock they’re healthy
delicious and fun then why are we not
doing it already and so they’re not only
scientifically proven to provide us with
the nutrients that we need they also
provide business opportunities in the
food innovation and development sector
and so they provide opportunities for
rural and urban areas communities all
across the world I actually believe that
if we work together to overcome cultural
taboos associated with eating insects we
could create a healthier society and
happier planets and so on that note I
would like to welcome you all to join me
at the break and try some edible insects
for yourself and I’d love to hear your
feedback thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
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