{"id":105898,"date":"2020-04-23T01:22:19","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T08:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/insects-as-food-belgium-takes-a-bite"},"modified":"2020-04-23T01:22:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T08:22:19","slug":"insects-as-food-belgium-takes-a-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/insects-as-food-belgium-takes-a-bite","title":{"rendered":"Insects as food: Belgium takes a bite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/insects-as-food-belgium-takes-a-bite2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first EU permits for insects as a \u201cnovel food\u201d should be issued in mid-2020. This will end the legal uncertainty about breeding insects for human consumption in Europe. Now is the time to draw lessons from Belgium, which has served as a sandbox for the fledgling industry, about its future prospects. Are we really ready to eat insects?<\/p>\n<p>Romy is an adorable little blond girl who, like all children under the age of 2\u00bd in Belgium, goes to the <em>cr\u00e8che<\/em> most weekdays. Her parents spend 20 minutes every evening preparing her lunch, carefully weighing out some carbs, freshly cooked vegetables, a protein-rich ingredient, some high-quality fat and a sprinkling of chopped herbs. It\u2019s the recommended diet for a child her age. But unlike most of Belgium\u2019s children, Romy gets a meal that eventually includes a teaspoon of cricket powder. In fact, she even loves to snack on some whole locusts from time to time. All this thanks to Belgian\u2019s progressive regulatory system, which allowed a whole new sector in the Western agrifood landscape to open up here a few years ago.<\/p>\n<p>In theory, Romy is well on track to help fulfil the prediction, or rather prescription, of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for insects to become \u201ca high-value source of animal protein for the rapidly growing world population.\u201d But the challenges ahead are huge and Belgium, as a test ground, has gained some valuable experience. Along with a few other countries in Europe, Belgium has taken a bite at insects. But sometimes it hurts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first EU permits for insects as a \u201cnovel food\u201d should be issued in mid-2020. This will end the legal uncertainty about breeding insects for human consumption in Europe. Now is the time to draw lessons from Belgium, which has served as a sandbox for the fledgling industry, about its future prospects. Are we really [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":417,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1506,1496],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/417"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}