A start-up entrepreneur from South Africa wants to change the way edible caterpillars, popularly known as “mopane worms,” are viewed and eaten.
For many people, particularly from western European backgrounds, the idea of eating insects is riddled with fear and inhibition.
However, insects can be a valuable source of nutrition, and farming them is not detrimental to the environment.
Photo: AFP
South African chemical engineer Wendy Vesela has found ways of turning the spiky green and black caterpillars — which are packed with protein and iron — into a flour that can be used in savory biscuits, sweet chocolate protein bars, cereals or smoothies. When steamed and sliced, mopane pieces can also be used as pizza toppings.
Vesela said that she has found domestic and international customers for her organic products.
Edible insects and worms might be gaining popularity in Western cultures, but food anthropologist Anna Trapido said that the trend should not be seen as just another dietary fad, a “kind of adventure tourism, where you get a badge” for eating them.
“Mopane need to be treated with respect because they are part of people’s emotional, spiritual, culinary genres,” she said.
In Vesela’s home province of Limpopo, where she grew up in a town not far from the world-famous Kruger National Park, mopane is a staple food, cooked in a sauce of onions and tomatoes.
The caterpillars are “a healthier option of protein,” she said, adding that it is “not a worm. So people have just to get over that fear.”
Vesela tried to woo reluctant customers with biscuits and protein bars at a food fair in Johannesburg’s upmarket Sandton area.
“I won’t eat a worm. I’m sorry, it’s disgusting, but if you give it to me in the form of a chocolate ... it’s really delicious,” said Gail Odendaal, 38.
Mopanes are environmentally friendly, too, requiring no extra water or land, as they breed and feed on mopane trees, which grow in hot and dry regions of southern Africa.
They are a better source of protein than many foods on the market, dietitian Mpho Tshukudu said.
“It has more iron than the most expensive piece of steak,” she said.
With demand rising since she started her venture seven months ago, Vesela said she plans to have multiple harvests a year.
She hires rural women to gather mopanes when they are in season in December and April. The mopanes are gutted, boiled and dried to then be used whole or milled.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS