Edible insects arrive in Glasgow with Grubs on the Go By night, he sautés locusts, dips crickets in cocoa and turns mealworms into curry. "I'm completely terrified of insects," insists Steven, "Really and truly terrified. It's the way their little legs move... A year ago, Steven couldn't even look at a bug without squirming. Today, he's munching them chopped, fried and served on a platter. "It began after a trip to Singapore and Beijing," Steven explains. I was walking past stalls of crickets and locusts and I remember thinking how absolutely gross they were and how I would never, ever eat anything like that. Two months later of course and I was doing a full project on it. Steven's trip had left him searching for facts behind bugs and what he found left him inspired. At present, 80% of the world's population eat insects out of an incredible 1,900 different species which are classed as edible. As Marcel Dicke, Professor of Entomology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands confirms: "There are six million species of insects worldwide that account for 80% of the animals on earth. We are not a Planet of Man but a Planet of Insects," he said. "Like Professor Dicke, I was curious to find out if insects could genuinely become a viable alternative to our modern diet," explains Steven. In order to test his theory, Steven went on a 30 day insect diet, eating nothing but edible grubs to see if he could survive. "I thought my flatmate was going to kill me," Steven laughs. I think he's still holding a grudge. Only yesterday he walked in holding a cricket that he'd found in his bedroom. There's a serious reason behind it all though. Did you know that to produce 1 kilo of Beef is equivalent to the amount of Carbon Dioxide given off by an average car driving 160 miles? That's not even mentioning the pressure the livestock industry puts on the planets" natural resources," Steven adds. Of the 37% of the land area we are currently using for agriculture, two thirds of this is used for just livestock. And of all the crops we grow, 35% is given over as livestock feed. The livestock industry is being given this rather than the billion people worldwide who are currently suffering from malnourishment and starvation. Taking on the 3kg of Mealworm and 600 Brown crickets that had now arrived into his living room however, was not going to be an easy task for Steven. "It really, really wasn't easy," laughs Steven. It's easy to look back now but it really was hard the first time. You have to prepare the insects for cooking, like you would a vegetable, and that means a good old fashioned worm bath. I had to test different ways of making the insects attractive to eat. These methods included frying, boiling and oven-baking them, some were seasoned with herbs and spices and some were simply splashed with some cooking oil. I tried making bug pancakes out of mealworm/cricket flour which worked well. They didn't taste that much different than any other ordinary pancake. From mealworm fajitas to fried cricket pasta, Steven tried as many culinary grub dishes as he could, with even his friends falling victim to his experiments in the kitchen with his secret mealworm Rice Crispy cakes. "The biggest challenge is getting people to see past the wriggle things they're more used to squishing and consider them as eating," admits Steven. Given that at one point in our ancestral past we must surely have thought fish to be gross and slimy, chickens to be scrawny and cabbage something that only the desperate among us would eat, perhaps a future of mealworm burgers is not that far off. "You never know until you try it," grins Steven. I'll be holding fine-dining insect dinners and street food style bug bites to give everyone taste. Grubs up folks! And to see just how Glasgow has been handling its buggy encounter so far, we popped along to Steven's latest "Grubs on the go" event to see your reaction to a plateful of delectable bugs: via STV