Grasshopper breeder up for design award and educating western palates

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jun/28/grasshopper-breeder-lepsis-design-award-food


The Lepsis grasshopper breeder can yield as many as 100 insects a batch, and is a finalist for the the Index: Award, one of the biggest design prize in the world. Photograph: indexaward.dk


Coffee machine, toaster, blender … grasshopper breeder? A US-based designer who grew up in west Africa has come up with a very different kitchen appliance to help with dinner.

With the UN insisting that people will need to eat more insects as a source of protein as global food supplies struggle to feed the seven billion people on the planet, Mansour Ourasanah's invention may be an idea whose time has finally come.

The terrarium-style insect breeder, known as the Lepsis, is designed to fit alongside other stylised kitchen gadgets. Grasshoppers grow on a green hexagonal-patterned grid. Everything is visible through a transparent acrylic compartment. Once they have matured, a bowl-shaped unit with a light is attached to attract and harvest them. The crowded harvest unit is then removed and placed in a freezer in order to kill its contents and store them for future consumption. The growing process is said to take about a month, and Ourasanah expects the Lepsis to yield as many as 100 grasshoppers a batch.

The design is among the finalists for this year's Index: Award, presented in Denmark in August to honour innovative solutions to global challenges.

[tularetom]

1. I'm pretty sure I couldn't live on 100 grasshoppers a month

You'd probably need a couple dozen of these things to feed a family of four. Maybe a bigger unit that you could keep outside.

It definitely shows thinking outside the box however.