People who often eat at the Refter, probably have already seen them: candybars made with insects. Radboud University is one of the first places in The Netherlands who dares to put these snacks on the menu. The Dutch department of the company behind them is located in Nijmegen and consists of just one person, who is happy to explain why we should all start eating mealworms and crickets.

‘It is very simple’, says Evelien Donkers. ‘We have to eat insects to save the planet’. Donkers is a student at Wageningen University who used to study in Nijmegen, and still lives here. ‘I study Food & Technology and I had to do an internship. Before, I had already tried to start a business in granola bars with a friend. That’s why Jimini’s found me.’ She started an internship at the French company, that makes insect bars and snacks. After her internship, she became the company’s headquarters in the Netherlands, working from Nijmegen.

According to the infographic Donkers uses in her promotion, over 2 billion people around the world already eat insects. Insects contain a lot of proteins, more than chicken and beef, and just as much Omega 3 and 6 as fish. Eighty percent of an insect is edible. And they need less food, water and space. The insects are bred in The Netherlands, and are lyophilized, dried by freezing them. ‘It is humane and effective’, says Donkers. ‘We produce the bars and other products in France, so after freezing the insects, we ship them there. That is not ideal, we know, but we should be honest about that.’

Insect pasta
‘Radboud University is the only university that dares to sell these bars on a large scale’, says Donkers. ‘In Wageningen, they only sell them in one of the smallest cafeterias.’ The university might even be interested to start selling pasta made from insects on Monday’s. ‘But they are not sure yet, because of Meatfree Monday. We get that a lot, people who do not eat meat and do not know what to think of eating insects’, she explains. ‘There is a lot of discussion about this, for example about whether insects can feel pain, like animals. However, only eating plant-based calories does not exclude animal cruelty. Rabbits and birds die when farmers harvest, and cultivating crops also causes a lot of emission.’

Since eating insects is very new in The Netherlands, Donkers has to keep thinking of ways to make them look less scary for people. ‘When I offer people a piece of an insect bar of a meal worm, there is about a fifty percent chance that they will actually try it. It is the hardest for people when they can still see that it was an insect’, she says. ‘I am now thinking about creating an insect beer. Incorporating insects in our diet should not become a trend, it should become normal. The same thing happened to sushi, first people thought it was scary, now it is very normal.’