Would you eat Belgian waffles made with "bug butter"?

Scientists at Belgium's university of Ghent are experimenting with larva fat to replace butter in cakes, cookies and waffles, saying deriving grease from insects is more sustainable than dairy production.

Clad in white aprons, the researchers soak Black soldier fly larvae in a little bit of water and mush them with a kitchen blender into smooth greyish dollop before centrifuges separate the newly-obtained insect butter.
 
"There are several positive things about using insect ingredients," said Daylan Tzompa Sosa, who oversees the research at the Ghent university in Belgium.

"They are more sustainable because they use less land, they are more efficient converting feed to weight, they also use less water to produce," she said in comparing growing larvae to cattle as she presented a freshly-baked insect butter cake.    According to her team's research, consumers notice no difference when a fourth of milk butter is replaced with larvae fat in a cake but start recording an unexpected taste when it gets to fifty-fifty.    
 
Scientists elsewhere in Europe are also looking at insect food as more environmentally-friendly and cheap alternative to other types of animal products, as well as being high in protein, vitamins, fiber and minerals.



REUTERS