Once convinced that eating insects is healthy, tasty, and cool, kids will be the most effective ambassadors for the industry. Arachnophobes, be warned! A new video made by Project Explorer features people chowing down on deep-fried tarantulas in Cambodia, one crispy leg at a time. There are some crickets, mealworms, and cockroaches thrown in there as well, but somehow, they pale in comparison to the tarantulas. The video, which was screened at the Brooklyn Bug Festival this past summer and will be shown in classrooms around the United States, is part of a push to get kids interested in eating insects.
Why? Because marketers know that if kids can be convinced eating insects is a good idea, it bodes well for the entire edible insect industry. The younger generation will grow up into bug-eating adults, while influencing peers and family members to do the same.
Kids, for all their stubborn little food-related quirks, are surprisingly open to ideas that might horrify their parents. (Who knew?) They are also more more tuned-in to environmental issues these days than in the past. NPR's The Salt cites a 2013 study that found:
"Children have a deeper concern for following environmental rules (such as not carving names into trees or not stepping on flowers) than for following social rules (such as not picking your nose or being a messy eater). This could conceivably manifest in kids not only wanting to protect the natural world, but also being able to ignore stigmas — even in the kitchen — that would thwart conservation efforts."
This is why the Brooklyn Bug Festival featured an all-day children's education program, with a 'petting zoo' (picture writhing mealworms in your hand) and cricket samples. One father tried the crickets only because his daughter made him -- then he ended up buying some to take home because they were so good. David George Gordon, author of The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook, says events like this are a great way to engage parents, since "adults are skeptical (about eating bugs and} kids are so receptive to trying them."
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