Singapore’s dining scene is about to be shaken up, following the news that up to 16 species of insects may be approved for sale as food as early as next month. These include crickets, silkworms, grasshoppers and more which can act as alternative proteins to substitute real meat. Soon, you might be able to find these critters in foods like pastries, fried rice, and even sushi.
This approval process has been a rather lengthy one in the making, starting with the Singapore Food Agency’s (SFA) public consultation on safety concerns on insect products in late 2022, followed by their statement that these insects would be approved for consumption in the second half of 2023.
When the news originally broke out, it was naturally met with cynicism and even nausea for some folks. But there’s a good reason why incorporating insects into food has been a hot topic lately.
We spoke to Christopher Leow, co-founder of the local cricket farm Future Protein Solutions, last year. And according to him, insects like crickets are superfoods. “They have more calcium than milk, iron than cows, omega-6 than salmon. Also, the extra high protein content at 76 percent (when extracted in powder form) positions them as an attractive product.”
With concerns about the sustainability of conventional poultry and cattle farming, farming insects is an environmentally friendly alternative. They require much less water, feed, land, and also emit less greenhouse gases. On top of that, scaling up production is much easier since insects reproduce quickly.
Nutritional and environmental benefits aside, insects can even taste good. “Gen Z-ers are game to try [insects] and there isn’t much prejudice with it. Some of them even enjoy the flavour!”, he says.
Check out our Time Out Tries video where we sampled crickets for the first time:
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These are the 16 insect species that could be approved for sale as food in Singapore next month:
- House cricket
- Branded cricket
- Common cricket
- Field cricket
- African migratory locust
- American desert locust
- Grasshopper
- Superworm
- Mealworm
- Lesser mealworm
- Greater wax moth
- Lesser wax moth
- Silk moth or silkworm
- Whitegrub
- Giant Rhino beetle grub
- Western honey bee
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