Il Grillo in Tavola

Il Grillo in Tavola

After Pinocchio's talking cricket, now it's time for Acheta Domesticus, a harmless, domestic cricket that is about to arrive on our tables. In fact, the European Union has recently given the go-ahead for the placing on the market of this Novel Food, a new food.So the Grillo will be introduced in the form of a partially defatted powder and the European Union has authorized its use on various foods including bread, crackers, breadsticks, biscuits, sauces, legume-based dishes, both in powder form and in soup etc.
The regulation concerns the use of Novel Foods which had already entered into force in 2018 and allowed the inclusion of whole insects in our Mediterranean diet as traditional products from third countries such as domestic crickets such as the Acheta Domesticus, the yellow larva of the flour, the tenebrio molitor and the migratory locust.

For us ringing food considered extraneous to the national food culture to an Italian table should be prohibited; you can eat insects if you want exotic food, but promoting a sustainable Mediterranean diet with crickets is absolutely not appropriate. An observation comes naturally: with the myriad of healthy products, our ancient flours that we are rediscovering, these grains without additives that do not induce allergies, this spasmodic cure in search of perfection towards health cannot now find a stumbling block in the introduction to flour of the cricket with respect speaking for the producing countries. Certainly the migratory locusts that invade our fields especially in the south due to the advancing deserts, a consequence of climate change, lead us to reflect. But at the same time we have to fight to safeguard our identity, our biodiversity, research on indigenous products involves our origins, both for work and for the culture that derives from it at the table. NO from us, but the path appears difficult….

Valentina Niccolai

  • ---



- -

E-mail:
Web Site:

Request more information to: Il Grillo in Tavola

All fields are required

I declare that I have read the information under Article 13 of Legislative Decree no. 196/2003 and authorize the use of my personal information for purposes stated in the same.
[Privacy and Condition]