Unconventional foods: salvation or sensuality.

Some explanation for the title of this paper is necessary. The contention is that unconventional foods are unlikely to make a significant contribution to the world food problem although they may provide sophisticated sensual enjoyment. Eating not only provides nutrients but is also fun, and both are important to man. Those of us who attempt to modify the nutrient content of human diets with a view to improving health know we cannot ignore the pleasures of good food. A food has no nutritional value unless it is eaten. Although starving people may eat because they are hungry, most of us do so because we enjoy eating and nutritional considerations are low on our list of factors influencing food choice. Even starving people have strong food preferences, and have been known to refuse unusual food either because they did not like it or because they lacked the domestic skills to make it palatable. The rejection of maize supplied during the Irish potato famine is one example, which also illustrates the problem of defining the term ‘unconventional food’. Clearly what is conventional in one culture could be taboo in another. Maize was an unconventional food to the Irish potato eaters in the nineteenth century, but not to the tortilla eaters of Mexico: it was pellagragenic for the poor whites in America who did not use Mexican traditional methods of preparation: it was also an unconventional food to the English but in the twentieth century it successfully replaced the cooked breakfast in the form of cornflakes. Clearly it is possible to change people’s food habits but it requires good technology and careful marketing. It seems evident also that success is more likely in a society with a sophisticated palate that can afford to experiment and that seeks variety in textures, colours and flavours. How else can one explain the serving at American parties of blue cocktails with chocolate-coated ants? Nevertheless, one must recognize that there are some foods that have never been previously consumed by man and which would be unconventional in any culture. Over 30 years ago our Society held a symposium on this subject (Nutrition Society, 1953) and the topics included seaweeds, mushrooms and insects as well as the indigenous foods of tropical countries and the diets of aboriginals and eskimos. I t was one of the first meetings I attended and I can still vividly remember Dr Bristowe’s offer to eat house spiders for cash, and the account of his meeting with His Serene Highness Prince Sithiporn of Siam (sic) who was fond of the roasted larvae of the coffee-boring moth which in his view were clean-feeding caterpillars compared with such scavengers as lobsters or shrimps: the prince expressed disgust at our consumption of ‘high’ game and decaying cheese. Dr Bristowe’s enthusiasm for spiders extended to the blue-legged mygalomorph which achieves 60 mm in length and 40 g in weight but I have heard no reports of their being eaten