On my farm in Kodaikanal, insects were ‘signallers’: fireflies in August meant it was going to be a good monsoon, aphids meant my neighbours had been spraying pesticides, and the literal thousands of winged termites that would hover under every lightbulb in my house, just for a few days every year, meant the monsoon was starting.
I should have understood, when every creature from ants to my cats and dogs ate the termites that had fallen to the ground, their wings singed by the bulbs, that there was more to them than met the eye. But it was much later that I found out that ‘eesal’ (Tamil for winged termites) was a traditional delicacy, owing to the few days a year they were available.
I am thinking of the eesal, curry leaf, mustard and red chilli poriyal (a sautéed dish) that my neighbour had taught me to make, when Tansha Vohra offers me a chutney at her session at the Old GMC Complex in Goa. “Coriander, salt, onion, chilli… and red weaver ants,” she says, adding with a smile, “No lime,” just as I pucker my lips at the tangy sourness of the ants’ formic acid. It is delicious.
Tansha Vohra introducing guests to edible insects | Photo Credit: Courtesy The Boochi Project
Vohra, a London-based food anthropologist and writer — and speaker at the recent ‘Imagining Insects – Rethink Taste, Disgust and Delight’ talk at Serendipity Arts Festival — stumbled upon weaver ants in 2018. She disturbed a nest in a cacao tree while trying to harvest cocoa beans, a month into her internship at Rosie and Peter Fernandes’ edible forest garden in Goa. There was no way she could reach the fruit without destroying the nest, and when Fernandes shared they were edible, she took matters into her own hands and harvested her first ‘crop’. The rest is history.
She now regularly harvests ants. “I have found them all around the country. They nest in almost any tree,” she says, as the young man across from me takes a tentative spoonful of the chutney. “I have even found them on passion fruit vines.” It takes two people at least to harvest, she adds; you need someone to catch the rain of ants once you break the nest off the branch they attach themselves to. “But that just means you end up introducing someone else to the joys of eating weaver ants.”
Tansha Vohra | Photo Credit: Courtesy The Boochi Project
Weaver ant chutney | Photo Credit: Courtesy The Boochi Project
Today, Vohra keeps a bag of ants in her freezer at all times (freezing them is the best way to preserve their formic acid), which may sound strange for someone who grew up in Bengaluru, and loves going to bookstores and parks, but she is genuinely excited about the potential entomophagy, or the practice of eating insects, offers for the future of humanity. As a fellow permaculturalist, she tells me how it is a perfect example of the “problem becoming the solution”. (Permaculture is a system of designing ecosystems that mimic nature, and aims to reduce waste, improve biodiversity, and protect wildlife.)
Fernandes, her permaculture mentor, agrees. “Climate change is a reality now, and the crops used to feed livestock are being affected by it. The amount of water, space and resources needed for a similar amount of protein is drastically reduced when farming insects,” he says. “Moreover, the changes in temperature cause trauma to livestock, which insects can easily be insulated from.”
Environmental impact
Fernandes is a convert, too. He started harvesting black soldier fly larvae and weaver ants during the early days of lockdown and, with some online help, now develops his own recipes. Vohra shares a favourite: “We found the fly larvae breeding in a compost heap that was too wet. We fried them with garlic in their own fat, and served them butterflied like a prawn, which is what they tasted like!”
Peter Fernandes | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
When I bring up the gross/gourmet dichotomy that edible insects find themselves in, she brings up sushi. “People said the same things about sushi in the beginning, and now it’s a global phenomenon. I believe insects have that potential. It’s a multi-million dollar industry; it’s good for the environment; it’s good for our health; and they taste great.” The statistics prove her right: the global edible insects market size was valued at $1.35 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 25.1% from 2025 to 2030, according to American consulting firm Grand View Research.
She insists, however, that she is in it wholly for the taste. I believe her. “You won’t guess it,” she exclaims mid-interview, “but rhino beetle larvae taste exactly like bacon.”
Vohra now runs a programme with Serendipity Arts Foundations called The Boochi Project. Kicked off in 2021, it is dedicated to researching entomophagy in India. She collects recipes from around the country that use edible insects, as well as researches and develops recipes of her own — from fermenting weaver ants and making a grasshopper miso, to discovering new edible species, such as the savoury rhino beetles.
Chocolate-dipped black soldier fly larvae | Photo Credit: Courtesy The Boochi Project
Insect protein market
More than 2,300 insect species globally are considered edible; they are both aquatic and terrestrial. While most are foraged, some are now farmed on a large scale in countries such as the U.S., France, Thailand, Denmark, China, South Africa, and Canada. In 2023, Singapore-based multi-million dollar company Entobel inaugurated its largest insect protein production facility in Vietnam for black soldier fly larvae to “produce functional insect-based ingredients for animal feed and health”. In India, Insectifii in Bengaluru, also farms insects for animal feed.
Vohra believes the time is right to market insects for humans, with rampant gym culture, menopausal women understanding their body’s need for protein and, of course, the phenomenal rise of Ozempic — which requires people to increase protein in their diet. Everyone wants to incorporate 30g of protein per meal, and insects are extraordinarily high in it. The Indian weaver ant, for example, is reported to be 55.27% protein; compare that with 26% in beef, 27% in chicken or 33% in rabbit.
Lobeno Mozhui, a zoologist from Nagaland University with a Ph.D in the nutritional value and medicinal uses of edible insects, says, “In traditional Naga societies, insects are alternative protein and energy sources. They are considered more valuable in terms of nutrient content than any other conventional meat source. For instance, after heavy manual labour, the tribal people consume cooked dragon nymphs and water larvae to rejuvenate themselves.”
Lobeno Mozhui | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
She points to how SDG 2 (Sustainable Development Goal 2), a branch of the United Nations that focuses on eradicating global hunger, is today seriously looking into edible insects as an answer to rising malnutrition, and its Food and Agriculture Organization has already started advocating edible insects for future food security.
The focus is not only on insects, but the entire traditional food system — to achieve food security, improved nutrition, and sustainability. “So, we all need to come out of the disgust factor and focus on what is healthy,” says Mozhui.
Mapping India’s edible insects
The politics of food
Unfortunately, the reality is that food in India is heavily entwined with a person’s socio-economic and political standing, and selling insects as a form of protein in a country where being vegetarian is equated with purity seems difficult. Mumbai-based Gitika Saikia, an Assamese home cook, has been a long-time advocate of edible insects. Belonging to the Kachari community, she has fond memories as a child of collecting water beetles from nearby ponds and silkworm pupae from mulberry trees to take home. “During Bihu, we have a food ritual to prepare a dish with 101 green vegetables. But it’s often impossible to collect so many different varieties. So, we eat weaver ants, with the belief that it has ingested all these vegetables,” she shares.
Gitika Saikia | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Saikia has worked with chefs such as Manu Chandra and Prateek Sadhu and restaurants like The Bombay Canteen, collaborating for Assamese food pop-ups and sharing her knowledge of insects. She’s even appeared on the Netflix show Menu Please in 2020. Unfortunately, she faced backlash after the show was streamed, with trolls asking her to remove videos of edible silkworm pupae from her Facebook page and telling her “to go back to China to eat these insects”.
Stir-fried silkworm pupae | Photo Credit: Gitika Saikia
But she didn’t give in to pressure. “I am proud of the food of my community and I did not bring a single post down,” she says, adding that from next month, she is planning to source water beetles, silkworm pupae and weaver ants from Assam (which she had to stop during the pandemic) and spread the word on entomophagy. “This is a tradition I really want to revive.”
Elsewhere in Maharashtra, Shahu Patole, author of Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada, can empathise with Saikia. “There is constant social humiliation of some people because of what they eat. It is the right of each human to freely choose what they want to consume, but if the food is linked to religion or politics, there will always be backlash,” he says. While insects do not play a large role in Patole’s community’s diet, honey bee larvae is much coveted. They are carefully collected during summer, when the colony is at peak production, and are eaten tossed with red chilli powder and onions.
Larvae as a snack | Photo Credit: Shahu Patole
However, what Patole truly opened my eyes to is a problem more covert than the obvious judgement that the “brahmanisation’ of India’s food has resulted in. It is the issue of when Dalits (and others) start internalising this dialogue and feel ashamed of the food traditions they grew up with. “The shame Dalits feel about their food is largely dependent on the region they live in, making it clear it is society that creates the problem.”
“In India, the concept of edible insects is still emerging. Cultural preferences and dietary habits play significant roles in this hesitation. The development of insect-based foods [such as snacks and protein bars] faces challenges, including regulatory hurdles. However, as global interest in sustainable protein sources grows, it’s possible that Indian entrepreneurs and companies may explore this sector in the future. Also, while the Indian restaurant scene has not widely embraced edible insects, there are niche instances [like Papa’s in Mumbai and Farmlore in Bengaluru].”Vicky RatnaniChef
Inside traditional kitchens
There is little to be ashamed of, especially when eating insects has long been an integral part of culinary heritage among many communities across India. From Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Jharkhand, to Tamil Nadu and the Andaman Islands, over 500 varieties are eaten, according to Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). While winged termites and weaver ants are the most common, adult bees and bee larvae, wasps, crickets, silkworm pupae and larvae, beetles, grasshoppers, locusts, snails and giant water bugs are all eaten.
The methods of identifying, gathering, and preparing insects are part of tribal custom, and often, they are cooked in similar ways — mostly fried or roasted with spices, or made into a chutney. For instance, in Nagaland, bee larvae are roasted and eaten like a snack, in Tamil Nadu winged termites are fried and eaten as a side dish, in Chhattisgarh, ant chutney is a delicacy, and in Manipur and Mizoram, silkworm larvae and pupae are eaten raw with salt and chilli.
Ati Atier from Kohima started Oyas Umami, a catering company in Goa in 2019, where she serves up a modern take on her native Naga cuisine. She grew up with her grandparents who were farmers from Mopungchuket village. “Every time we went out to the fields, we would catch insects to bring back to eat. We ate big bellied spiders and cicadas during the onset of summer. I loved collecting water beetles that swam in the ponds for dinner,” she says, adding how they often grew what the larvae like to eat — like mulberry for silkworm larvae.
Ati Atier | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Atier remembers catching weaver ants from mango trees, shaking their nests with a pole and collecting them when they fell. The best part is that insects are still a big part of their diet. “In the markets, we have grasshoppers, locusts, wood worms, rhino beetles, winged termites, and hornets. Silkworm larvae are served in restaurants. The youth still eat them,” she says. And with tourists interested in trying them, she hopes the interest will spread.
While there are currently no nutritionists in India seriously recommending insects as a form of protein, plenty of studies prove their nutritional supremacy. Especially following a 2013 paper published by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization titled ‘Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Nutritional Security’, which suggested that insects have the potential to become one of the staple foods of the future.
A study by life science consulting firm Halloran and others stated that “edible insects not only fulfil daily energy and nutrient requirements, but also contain essential amino acids, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, zinc, iron, and fibre. In addition... [they] also contain functional components like chitin, phenols, antioxidants, and antimicrobial peptides, which have potential benefits for immune support and disease prevention in humans”.
Ants on the dinner plate
Mumbai’s latest ‘it’ restaurant, Papa’s from Hunger Inc. Hospitality — a 12-seater led by chef Hussain Shahzad, where your fellow guest could be Dua Lipa (the British-Albanian singer dined there before her concert last November) — has red ants on their menu. ‘Bugs Bunny’ is a grilled rabbit marinated in sundried weaver ants from Jharkhand. “We source our red ants from a sweet potato farmer. He collects and dehydrates them for us. The dehydration process helps extend their shelf life,” Shahzad explains.
Bugs Bunny | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
While he believes that insects are going to be a future food, he is more realistic about when they will be adopted. “I do think insects, especially ants, will become a sustainable source of protein in the future. With the way things are [at the moment], it’s not something that’ll happen in the next 10 years, but maybe in the next 20 or 30 years.” For now though, he says, “They bring taste, texture, and a sense of adventure to our tasting menu at Papa’s.”
Chef Hussain Shahzad | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Raaj Sanghvi, CEO of Culinary Culture, a platform for restaurant ratings, chef awards, and culinary content production, added ‘Bugs Bunny’ to his Best Plates of 2024. “Insects have long been a part of fine dining menus at some of the world’s top restaurants. Alex Atala, Brazil’s most famous chef, has been a vocal advocate of entomophagy. When I dined at his two-Michelin-starred DOM in São Paulo, he served me a large Amazonian leaf-cutter ant placed on a slice of pineapple as a starter,” he says. “But insects haven’t achieved mainstream acceptance in India yet. Chefs and restaurants will need to do more to shift perceptions for it to become the next big food trend.”
Amazonian leaf-cutter ant placed on a slice of pineapple at two-Michelin-starred DOM in São Paulo | Photo Credit: Raaj Sanghvi
Ants on a Shrimp at Noma’s Kyoto pop-up | Photo Credit: Raaj Sanghvi
Global interest
Combating diner aversion
ATREE has made it a priority to research edible insects for food security. They have documented the many species across the Northeast to preserve the traditional knowledge of their consumption, and are developing different ways, such as drying and grinding them into powder, to garner interest. Priyadarsanan Dharma Rajan, a researcher and senior fellow who, along with three others, ‘discovered’ three species of edible stink beetles last year, says, “Not only in Northeast India, but many indigenous and some mainstream communities in the rest of India eat insects. We have documented more than 500 species being consumed by people, almost all sourced from the wild. But a surge in demand from the outside market could lead to overharvesting from the wild, and could pose a threat to insect populations. So, it is crucial to develop rearing and agronomic methods for a wider range of species.”
Giant hornets with sichuan pepper and tree tomato | Photo Credit: Courtesy The Boochi Project
He feels India needs to be prepared for the global edible insect market, even if they don’t become mainstream here. “With its tropical climate characterised by favourable hot and rainy seasons, the country has good potential for insect farming. Moreover, the availability of organic waste can serve as a readily available and sustainable feed source for them. These factors contribute to India having a very high potential for developing insect farming.
Most recently, red weaver ant chutney or kai chutney from Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district was awarded a geographical indication (GI) tag. It feels like it is time to put squeamishness aside and dig in.
A recipe for giant hornets | Photo Credit: Courtesy The Boochi Project
A recipe for carpenter worms | Photo Credit: Courtesy The Boochi Project
The writer is a permaculture farmer who believes eating right can save the planet.
Published - February 07, 2025 03:49 pm IST
