Bugs

I heard from a friend that Nordic Food Lab was about to embark on a three-year research project on edible insects. Driven by my own personal interest in the food question, I decided to collaborate with a documentary.

Eating insects is unusual in western cultures but quite common in other parts of the world. The film captures this aspect in particular – respectfully, I hope. The image of entomophagy currently conveyed by the media is highly positive. Many refined restaurants, including Noma in Copenhagen, are incorporating insects into their dishes and in the Netherlands the government is supporting a fully-fledged campaign to promote them as a foodstuff: there are farms where they are produced for human consumption and they can even be found in supermarkets.

Shooting the film, I, personally, was surprised at how good they are and how hard it is to gather them. I believe, though, that big industry will soon take notice and start producing insects on a mass scale. Nonetheless, I’m sure this will be possible sustainably, though the costs of course would be higher.

The film doesn’t offer simple answers on the future of food and this type of food in particular, but I hope that after seeing it the public will reflect more on how we eat and how the food we consume is produced. Maybe spectators will ask themselves why we eat one thing rather than another. I hope they’ll stop and think, “What is sustainability?” I can’t give exhaustive answers to these questions, but thanks to my job I feel I have the responsibility to ask them.