Swapping Bacon For Ants: The Future of Food?

What makes the perfect fry-up in your opinion? Sausages? Beans? Black pudding? Hash browns? Fried egg? Ants? Yes, you did read that right.

According to food writer Stefan Gates, we could all be eating insects as a common meat substitute in the not-too-distant future. No, we won’t be stuck in a never-ending episode of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, but rather late-21st century Britain, where the meat we’re used to – chicken, lamb, beef, pork, etc – could be in short supply.

We appreciate this is a lot to get your head around; no more bacon, but ants instead? Will you be able to feel them crawling in your mouth? Will they be crunchy? And why bacon? Aren’t all insects meant to taste like chicken?

Mr Gates spoke to Fiona Stalker of BBC Radio Scotland’s Out for the Weekend programme about his theory, explaining that eating bugs could be much more sustainable for the planet than beef.

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There’s not really a nice way to put this, but basically cow farts are a huge contributor to global warming. They’re seriously strong and all of the methane that they contain is damaging the atmosphere and has been for years and years.

But bugs are just there – they may be annoying at times, but they don’t add anything harmful to the atmosphere. And they’re meaty, just like cows, and a great source of protein, just like beef. However, do appreciate you would have to eat a whole load of insects to get the same amount of meat as just one steak.

Isn’t eating ants too gross to think about though? Don’t we spend every autumn watching ex-Eastenders stars and retired footballers doing this as a form of torture for our entertainment?!

Well, Mr Gates pointed out that we actually already eat some things that are pretty disgusting when you stop to think about it; honey, for example, which he described as ‘multiply regurgitated bee vomit’. Delightful. But true. And if bee sick tastes so good, what other culinary delights might the natural world have to offer?

He explained that the taste of flat-bottomed ants is reminiscent of smoky bacon, while grasshoppers have a more beefy flavour – grasshopper stew and dumplings, anyone? Crickets apparently taste nutty and woodlice taste like shrimp – who would have guessed?! As for locusts, they’d make the ideal substitute for walnuts, according to Mr Gates.

The author also highlighted that certain insects are considered delicacies in some parts of the world, such as Asia and South America. And maybe they will be here in the future too!

Could ants on toast really replace avocado on toast? We’ll believe it when we see it on Instagram.