The Future of Food: Would You Eat Insects?

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[00:00:00.860] - Oliver (Host)

When I was a child, I was obsessed with that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the one where Violet Beauregarde tries Willy Wonka's magical chewing gum that gives her a full three-course meal. First, tomato soup, then some delicious roast beef, and finally, a sweet blueberry pie. She chews and she chews, describing every flavour as if it's filled with excitement. And I remember thinking: That's the future. That's incredible. Imagine never having to cook again! As if I were doing any cooking at all at the tender age of eight years old. Well, the future has arrived, but it's a little bit less magical than I had hoped. Because today, you can live on something like this chewing gum, or rather, a powdered version of it. You don't need plates or knives or forks. You don't even need time to prepare it. All you need is water, a scoop, and a shaker. I know because I spent a period of time living on just that powdered food, and it was one of the stranger, more miserable experiments I've ever done in the name of efficiency. Keep listening to hear why I would choose to do and why you might end up having to do it too.

[00:01:35.100] - Oliver (Host)

But also keep listening to hear why I'm actually still consuming powdered food most days of the week despite this experience. Welcome to English and Beyond: Intermediate English Podcast, the podcast for intermediate English learners who want to explore real and interesting, and often quite odd, ideas in natural British English. I'm Oliver, an English, Spanish, and Latin teacher from London, UK. And today we're talking about something that sounds futuristic, efficient, but for many of you, potentially a little bit dystopian: the future of food. Why are we so obsessed with finding new ways to eat or not eat? Why are tech companies and scientists working to reinvent something that humans have been doing perfectly well for thousands of years? From global hunger to climate change, there are serious reasons behind this innovation. But there's also something deeper, a cultural shift that's changing how we see food. You see, for most of human history, eating wasn't something people felt needed improving as such. The challenge was simply producing enough of the food. Farming was about survival, how to grow more grain before the winter, how to preserve meat, how to avoid famine. Food was valuable, but it wasn't something we had the ability to optimise or perfect.

[00:03:10.500] - Oliver (Host)

You grew it, cooked it, shared it, and if there was enough to go around, that was a huge success. And of course, that struggle still exists. In many parts of the world, millions of people continue to face food insecurity and malnutrition, that is, not getting enough food and not getting enough of the nutrients and the minerals and the vitamins that food provides. The difference is that in wealthier countries, richer countries, the focus has shifted. We have abundance, we have a lot, But we don't necessarily have balance. We worry less about having enough food and more about what food it is, whether it's healthy, sustainable, or "clean". So in the modern West, especially in the last few decades, we started treating food itself as a problem to be solved. Not because we don't have enough, but because we have too much or the wrong kind. Many of us are suffering from the pernicious effects of obesity, from the gradually negative effects of obesity. Nowadays, the questions sound different. How do we eat more efficiently? How do we make food healthier, faster, cheaper, or cleaner? How do we save time without losing nutrition? In other words, our relationship with food has shifted from survival to strategy.

[00:04:40.580] - Oliver (Host)

Agriculture, that is, food production, is also under pressure for practical reasons. It uses enormous amounts of land and water, and the global population keeps growing. So scientists are looking for smarter ways to feed more people with fewer resources and causing less damage to the planet. So, reinventing food starts to sound almost logical, like science and technology can do what tradition and mother nature never could naturally: create a perfect meal, balanced, sustainable, healthy, and ready in seconds. But, as we'll see, not everyone is convinced that this dream is a good one. Every time a new product promises to replace traditional food, the reaction online is intense. And it's not just about taste. I think it's really about control. For many people, food is one of the few things in life that still feels wholly personal. You decide what you buy, what you cook, what you put in your body. So when companies or governments start talking about alternative proteins or future diets, it can sound to many people more than just innovation. It can sound like interference. It started as a reaction to articles and conferences suggesting that insect protein could be a sustainable alternative to meet.

[00:06:14.300] - Oliver (Host)

Headlines like this example from the left wing UK paper, The Guardian: if we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects. But over time, it has become something else, a symbol for a much bigger fear for many people, that ordinary people will be told what to eat by distant elites who claim to know what's better for us. The perception is that this is the perennial hypocrisy of the ruling classes, the constant hypocrisy, the never-changing hypocrisy of the ruling classes, of the people in charge. We will have to swap to silkworms while they continue enjoying steak tartare. We get the bugs, they keep the beef. Do as I say, not as I do. And so, for vast swathes of the population, it's no longer just about crickets or climate. It's about identity, freedom, and distrust. And that's where this topic crosses into the wider culture war. The argument isn't really about nutrition anymore. The argument is about who gets to decide what's normal. So, what exactly does this brave new menu of the future include? Well, there are already powders and shakes that claim to contain everything your body needs. Products like Huel, Soylent, and Feed, along with dozens of smaller brands.

[00:07:41.720] - Oliver (Host)

They're part of a movement called complete nutrition, or meal replacement foods. The idea is that you can replace traditional meals with a drink that provides roughly the same balance of carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals. In a way, it's not so different from Willy Wonka's Chewing Gum, a single, efficient product that gives you everything you need without the hassle of cooking or cleaning. For people with long commutes, unpredictable hours, or little time for cooking, it's genuinely convenient. You don't have to think about ingredients or recipes. You just add water, you shake, and you drink. Some versions even come ready-made in bottles. It's not hard to see the logic. In theory, these products could help reduce waste, save money, and to make nutrition more predictable. But whether that counts as progress depends on how you see food - as fuel or as something more. More on that in a bit. Then there's lab-grown meat, created from real animal cells without killing an animal. It's expensive. It's still limited to a few pilot, test restaurants, but it's coming. Plant-based meat is already mainstream. The taste is getting closer to real meat every year. Most supermarkets now have shelves full of burgers that began life in laboratories, not in fields.

[00:09:11.480] - Oliver (Host)

And yes, there are the insects too. High in protein, low in fat, and unsurprisingly sustainable. You can already buy flour made from crickets, protein bars made with meal worms, even pasta fortified with bug powder. They're common in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. But in Europe and North America, the psychological barrier remains strong. Many people are very happy to eat shrimp, which are basically sea insects, but many of us also draw the line at crickets. All of these innovations share one promise: that food can be engineered, that eating can become cleaner, faster, and more efficient, something you manage rather than enjoy. I first started using Huel when I teaching full-time. My days were long, and I was always rushing somewhere, to class, to meetings, to mark essays. Lunch often meant a quick sandwich eaten over my laptop or nothing at all. So when I discovered this powder food that promised to give me everything my body needed in under a minute, it sounded absolutely perfect. And at first, it was. It tasted good. It kept me full. And it was strangely satisfying to feel so efficient, as if I'd hacked one of the most time-consuming parts of my day.

[00:10:34.560] - Oliver (Host)

But then I went a step further. Because I have a slightly obsessive personality and I like optimising things, I decided to see what would happen if I tried living entirely on powdered food, which I should say, Huel does not recommend. No cooking, no meals, no chewing, just shakes. That's when it stopped feeling like a fun science experiment and started feeling almost like a punishment. The first day was fine. The second day was boring. By day three, I couldn't stop thinking about food, not about hunger, but about real food. Textures, smells, the crunch of it, the warmth. It was all I could think about. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that when you remove the social and sensory parts of eating, your brain refuses to accept it. I wasn't hungry, but I felt deprived, as if something essential had gone missing from my life. That week taught me something I didn't expect. I realised that eating really isn't about nutrition, or at least not entirely. It's about punctuation. It breaks up the day. It gives it shape and rhythm. It's one of the few moments when we can stop working, talk to people, and do something primarily for pleasure.

[00:12:00.120] - Oliver (Host)

When I replaced food with shakes, all of that disappeared. There were no smells, no plates, no pauses in the day. Just a series of efficient refuelling stops. And I think that's what made it miserable. Not really the taste, nor the hunger, but the absence of ritual and fun. Even in the most technologically advanced future, we'll still crave the primitive comfort of a meal, the sound of a pan, the smell of toast, the act of sharing something that took time to prepare. Food might work as fuel, but it really is so much more. It's social connection too. And no powder, however balanced, can quite replace that. So Maybe Willy Wonka was right after all. A single meal in a stick is possible. But what he didn't mention was how lonely and sad it feels to live like that. As for me, I still drink Huel virtually every day. It's convenient, quick, and genuinely useful when I'm busy. But now I see it for what it is, a shortcut, not a substitute. I have a maximum of one or two shakes a day when it's convenient, when I'm wanting to consume more daily calories, and quickly. Because at the risk of sounding incredibly trite, food isn't just about what keeps us alive.

[00:13:22.760] - Oliver (Host)

It's a big part of what reminds us that we are alive. Thank you for listening to English and Beyond. Follow me, please! And if you've ever tried any of these futuristic foods yourself, or if you think you could, I'd love to know what you thought. See you next time.