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.
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