昆虫食品引发下一波饮食潮流

As a water planner in Utah, Pat Crowley had grown frustrated that his message of conservation was being largely ignored by an agriculture industry intent on siphoning off the Colorado River to keep crops in California and other Western states succulent.
帕特·克劳利原本是美国犹他州的一名水资源规划师，他一直热衷于传播水资源保护理念。但农业界一心只想着如何从科罗拉多河抽取河水来滋养加利福尼亚州和西部其他州的农作物，对于他的理论基本上置若罔闻，这让克劳利非常沮丧。

Then a few years ago, the 34-year-old whitewater rafting enthusiast was listening to a TED talk on edible insects, which touted the critters as a surprising potent source of protein. The more he heard about the potential water savings from swapping insects for traditional protein like soy and grains, the more he realized it might be time to change professions.
几年前，这位34岁的漂流爱好者有机会聆听了一场TED演讲，主题是可食用昆虫。演讲者把这些小动物誉为惊人的蛋白质来源。而且，放弃诸如大豆和谷物这类传统的蛋白质来源，转而利用小昆虫，显然具有节约用水的巨大潜力。他越听越觉得，可能是时候改变职业了。

After toying with farming insects in 2011 for animal feed, Crowley, his wife Erica Koltenuk, co-founder Dan O’Neill and several friends set up shop in a local restaurant in Salt Lake City and began experimenting with making flour from crickets. Yes, crickets– through a process whereby the bugs are roasted, ground into a powder, and added to a mixture that also includes organic dates, nuts and spices.
2011年，在抱着玩玩的心态饲养了一些用于动物饲料的昆虫之后，克劳利和妻子埃里卡o科尔特努克、联合创始人丹o奥尼尔以及几个朋友在盐湖城开设了一家餐厅，开始尝试着以蟋蟀为原料制作面粉。是的，以蟋蟀为原料。具体流程是，先焙烧这些小虫子，研磨成粉，然后将它们添加到一种还包括有机枣，坚果和香料的混合物之中。

A year later, they unveiled Chapul cricket bars, the first-ever energy bar made from cricket flour. The bars, each containing the equivalent of 25 crickets and claiming to contain twice the protein of their competitors, are now in over 200 health food, bike and extreme sports stores nationwide—the latest being Colorado-based Natural Grocers, a chain of 100 stores in the Midwest and West.
一年后，他们推出第一款使用蟋蟀粉制作的能量棒——Chapul蟋蟀棒。每个能量棒包含大约25只蟋蟀，其蛋白质含量据说是竞争对手的两倍。现在，这款能量棒已经进入200多家位于全美各地的保健食品、单车和极限运动商店。最新一家合作伙伴是总部位于科罗拉多州，在中西部和西部地区拥有100家门店的Natural Grocers连锁零售公司。

“I decided to create a consumer product that would make it a very easy first step for people to try insects in a way that wasn’t a novelty but incorporate it into a staple food – make it more of a nutritional product,” says Crowley, who has long blond hair and bears a passing resemblance to the late Kurt Cobain. “This was definitely a mission-driven endeavor. It turns out the market has been responsive to it.”
克劳利说，“我决定创建一种消费产品，让人们很容易迈出品尝昆虫的第一步，因为这种食品把昆虫融入一种主食，这样它就更像是一种营养产品，这种吃法不算特别新奇。”留着一头金色长发的克劳利看上去颇像已故歌星科特o柯本。“这是一次完全受使命感推动的尝试。事实证明，市场对我们的努力做出了响应。”

The bar got a huge boost when Crowley, dressed in a Chapul T-shirt and carrying a container of crickets, was selected to appear in March on the entrepreneur show Shark Tank, the hit business competition show on ABC in which entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. After initial reactions of “you gotta be kidding” and “there is no way I’m eating that,” the panel warmed to the product—and panelist and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban agreed to invest $50,000 for a 15 percent stake in the business (“Let’s eat some crickets,” he told Crowley).
3月份，当克劳利身穿Chapul T恤，携带一个装满蟋蟀的容器出现在ABC电视台收视率极高的创业节目《鲨鱼坦克》(SharkTank) 时，这种能量棒的知名度瞬间暴涨。参与这档商业竞争节目的创业者往往需要使出浑身解数，向一组评委推销他们的创业点子。乍一听克劳利介绍完，评委们纷纷表示，“你肯定是在开玩笑，”“我绝对不会吃这玩意，”但他们随后对这款产品产生了浓厚兴趣。担任评委的达拉斯小牛队 (Dallas Mavericks)老板马克o库班当场拍板，承诺将投资5万美元购买这家公司15%的股权（“让我们吃一些蟋蟀吧，”他告诉克劳利）。

“It’s a solution to a problem,” Cuban said via Twitter. “We need better sources of protein and over time I think consumer habits will change.”
“这是一个解决问题的方法，”库班通过Twitter表示。“我们需要更好的蛋白质来源，假以时日，我认为消费习惯会发生变化。”

In fact, Chapul is just one of a dozen or more new companies attempting to change the way Americans look at bugs. Brooklyn-based Exo is making protein bars, Boston-based-Six Foods is planning to sell tortilla chips made from cricket flour, and All Things Bugs, a Gainesville, FL-based firm founded by an entomologist, is looking to sell its own cricket flour to this burgeoning market. EnviroFlight in Ohio and AgriProtein in South Africa, meanwhile, are among at least four companies globally producing insects for the pet food, aquaculture or animal feed markets.
事实上，除了Chapul之外，还有十几家新公司正在尝试着改变人们看待小昆虫的方式。布鲁克林的EXO公司正在制作蛋白质能量棒。波士顿Six Foods公司打算销售用蟋蟀粉制作的墨西哥炸玉米片。总部位于佛罗里达州盖恩斯维尔，由一位昆虫学家创建的All Things Bugs公司也计划向这个新兴市场销售自己的蟋蟀粉。与此同时，至少有四家公司正在全球各地针对宠物食品，水产养殖或动物饲料市场生产昆虫，比如俄亥俄州的EnviroFlight公司和南非的AgriProtein公司。

The big opportunity they see: the consumption of insects as protein is much less taxing on the environment—growing, harvesting and processing them takes far less resources than chickens, cows and pigs, one percent of the greenhouse gasses of cattle and 100 times less water—so they tap into the current sustainability craze. They’re rich in protein and other key nutrients like omega-3 acids. And the products can be made at a low cost—until now, with very little competition.
他们看到了一个大机遇：消费昆虫蛋白质对环境的损害要远低于传统蛋白质来源——与鸡、牛和猪相比，饲养、收获和加工昆虫耗费的资源要少得多。因此，这类食品特别容易拨动热衷于可持续发展理念的当代人的心弦。昆虫含有丰富的蛋白质和诸如ω-3脂肪酸这类关键的营养素。这类产品的制作成本相对较低，而且直到目前，竞争对手寥寥无几。

But convincing Americans to eat anything containing creepy crawlers is not an easy sell. Unlike the developing world, where the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that two billion people depend daily on as many as 1,900 insect species for food, Americans and much of the West have long considered spiders, grasshoppers, crickets, flies and bees to be a nuisance that must be swatted away or stamped out.
但要说服美国人吃任何一种以令人毛骨悚然的爬虫为原料的食物，可不是一件容易做到的事情。不同于很多发展中国家——联合国粮农组织(Food and Agriculture Organization)估计，有20亿发展中国家人口每天依靠多达1,900种昆虫为食——美国人和其他西方国家一向认为蜘蛛、蝗虫、蟋蟀、苍蝇和蜜蜂皆是令人不胜其扰的小动物，必须赶紧驱离，或者干脆当场歼灭。

But Crowley and other edible insect aficionados are counting on younger, environmentally-conscious Millennials to move the sector beyond gag gifts like lollipops with scorpions or one-off bug buffets to become a staple in health food stores, snack stands and the larger food chain. The key, they say, is playing up the health benefits of eating products with insects while emphasizing bugs’ small environmental footprint.
但克劳利和其他可食用昆虫爱好者正在把推动这个行业的希望寄托在更年轻，更具环保意识的千禧一代身上，希望他们不只是把昆虫食品当作类似蝎子棒棒糖这种恶作剧礼物，或者一次性自助餐，还会推动这类食品成为健康食品商店、小吃店和大食品连锁店销售的一种主食。他们声称，关键是要大力宣扬吃昆虫产品对健康的好处，同时要强调昆虫食品的环境足迹要远小于传统蛋白质来源这一事实。

“We are trying to set up future generations with a more sustainable food system, one that is more resource efficient and one that is more adaptable to a more changing climate,” Crowley says.
“我们正在努力为子孙后代建立一个更具可持续性，更节约资源，更适应气候变化的食物系统，”克劳利说。

Rose Wang, co-founder of Six Foods, which in May raised $70,000 on Kickstarter to make its Chirps cricket chips and hopes to have the product in stores by fall, agrees. “It’s all about the vision of what eating insects can be,” Wang said in an e-mail interview, pointing out that the bugs are high in protein, low in fat, and can be raised humanely in small spaces, without antibiotics or growth hormones. “There is no question that insects are the most humane way to eat meat,” she says, “And as people become more cognizant of where their food comes from and how it is produced, they are becoming more open to new sustainable foods like insects.”
露丝o王认同这种看法。五月份，这位Six Foods公司联合创始人在众筹平台Kickstarter上筹集了7万美元，开始制作Chirps蟋蟀条，她希望这款产品能够在今年秋天进入食品店。在接受电邮采访时，王女士表示，“这就是吃昆虫能够带给我们的美好愿景。”她指出，昆虫不仅具有高蛋白，低脂肪等特质，而且可以在小空间内人性化饲养，无需使用抗生素或生长激素。“毫无疑问，昆虫是最人性化的吃肉方式，”她说。“随着人们对于食物的来源和生产方式有了更深入的了解，他们越来越愿意接受像昆虫这种全新的可持续性食物。”