Plague to protein: Israeli firm seeks to put locusts on the menu

This article originally appeared in Haaretz.

From biblical plague to modern day protein, one Israeli firm wants to make locusts a sustainable food choice in the Holy Land and beyond.

As for whether or not the insects are kosher, the answer is not so simple.

At Hargol Foodtech’s farm in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a rectangular enclosure that once served as a chicken coop is filled with thousands of locusts, a grasshopper species that has a highly destructive swarming phase.

Contained in a series of meticulously stacked, climate-controlled mesh cages, the insects are served wheatgrass through their three-month life-cycle, before being cooled, killed and baked.

Hargol‘s chief executive Dror Tamir told AFP that he grew up hearing stories of how locusts destroyed the fields of his kibbutz in the 1950s. Yet the Yemenite Jews in the area did not view locusts as crop-ruining pests, but as an edible source of nutrients, Tamir recalled.

Grasshoppers: the “solution”

As an adult, Tamir became a food and nutrition entrepreneur increasingly concerned about the environmental cost of providing the world’s growing population with enough animal protein. Tamir said he founded Hargol — Hebrew for grasshopper — six and a half years ago after realising the insects were the solution.

www.biblicalprotein.com

Read the full article on Haaretz.

News of Hargol has appeared globally in Taipei Times, Notizie Scientifiche, Yahoo News, Arutz Sheva, Haaretz, Money Control, Correio Braziliense, Noticias de Israel, MSN, Arte, The Times of Israel, The Straits Times, The Youth Times, Bastion Balance, Naija Wild, La Presse and Malay Mail