PUBLISHED ONFebruary 12, 2025 12:30 AMByYeo Shu HuiWhile the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has approved 16 species of insects for consumption, some of us would still squirm when the thought of eating these creatures comes to mind.
Local actress-baker Jeanette Aw had a chance to taste these insect snacks in the latest episode of her new YouTube series JA Unscripted, released on Feb 10.
The 45-year-old was guided by local beekeeper Clarence Chua after visiting his bee farm in the first episode released last week and was told by a staff member to eat what she farmed.
She was presented with a plate of insects — baked and dried — together with fruits, condiments and mead in the taste test.
As Chua introduced the insects they would be trying, Jeanette could be seen with a worried expression.
At one point, a staff member told Chua that Jeanette thought the cicada which they would be trying was a cockroach.
He laughed in response: "If I make Jeanette Aw eat a cockroach, then my reputation would become terrible. Don't worry, everything here is approved for consumption because they are clean. You can't eat cockroaches."
He also picked two bee pupae from a square of the honeycomb they took from the beehive.
Noting that they are alive and taking shape already, she told Chua: "I'm killing it [by eating them]."
"Everything that humans eat has died. It's whether you do it in a humane way," he responded.
Jeanette bravely placed the pupa in her mouth and later agreed with Chua that there was a subtle peanut butter flavour.
While she shared that it actually tasted okay, she added: "It's just a mental thing that you are eating an insect. I feel like I cannot swallow it."
As they tried the Asian honey bee next, Jeanette said with a grimace: "I have the visual image of the legs and the wings."
After having the red dwarf honey bee, they moved on to bigger insects, trying the cicada which has a distinctive crunch.
Chua also encouraged her to eat another one dipped in kaya, which she obliged after moments of hesitation, adding in laughter: "Got a leg stuck in my teeth."
She then ate a grasshopper with jam with Chua comparing it to deep-fried squid from economic rice stalls and potato chips, which Jeanette disagreed.
"When you chew the grasshopper, it disintegrates and it becomes like [flaky bits]," she said.
They also ate coconut worm larva with honey and salt, superworm and silkworm.
When Clarence asked if she had eaten insects before, Jeanette shared that she saw them for sale in food carts in Cambodia and her friend had encouraged her to eat a 'huge" grasshopper.
After a small "tasteless" scorpion, they moved on to the final creature of the day, the jungle scorpion.
Jeanette was given a choice of eating the pincer or the stinger, and she chose the former.
Dipping the pincer entirely in honey, she threw it in her mouth and a crunch could be heard when she chewed it.
"It's very hard," she remarked.
When asked which insect she preferred the most, she chose the bees, because it didn't look as strange as the others and the taste was "not as funky".
She didn't like the worm for its "mouldy" flavour and the scorpions because it felt like she was "biting a shell".
"And I still got one of the legs stuck in my teeth," she laughed.
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