昆虫食品：下一波饮食潮流？

    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。

    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。

    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•科尔特努克、联合创始人丹•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。

    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。

    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•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。”

    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•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）。

    “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。”

    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。

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    “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.”

    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).

    “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.”

    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.