Jun 16, 2022

To be a fly on the wall in chef Joseph Yoon’s kitchen would be a horrifying predicament. For starters, you’d be watching your brethren get slaughtered and marinated with delicious sauces and added to a healthy, protein-dense stir-fry.

Wait, what?

Yes. Edible bugs! Lots of them! Joseph Yoon is executive director of Brooklyn Bugs, an organization he started in 2017. When you visit brooklynbugs.com, you’re greeted with the mission statement: “To raise appreciation and awareness for Joseph Yoon via Instagram (@nakedseoul) edible insects through delicious, educational, creative, and fun interdisciplinary programming.” Yoon and Bugs are taking their message far and wide in the U.S. mostly, because, yes, eating bugs — while common in countries around the world — is one of the many things yet to catch on in America. (Think of it as the jai alai of cuisine.)

Yoon makes sure to highlight the environmental benefits that incorporating insects into your diet can have. Insect farms take up a fraction of the space of their bovine counterparts, plus bugs simply consume less and don’t release those awful methane gasses. “We’re not telling people to stop eating meat entirely,” Yoon told the Tampa Bay Times, “but if you were to substitute that meat with other bug protein even just once a week, it’d have a huge impact.”