I think every food is an acquired taste, except for maybe Cinnabon and perhaps chocolate chip cookies. Everyone is born with the genes to appreciate those two foods. But everything else that qualifies as food is loved by some people and hated by others. Except for cilantro, which should be declared a noxious weed. Anybody who likes cilantro needs to be shunned for showing very poor judgment.
I'm one of those people who can eat just about anything, even cilantro, although I think it tastes like Ivory soap. If it's not going to kill me, I can manage to choke anything down. You've probably played that game—could you eat somebody if you were out on a mountain somewhere and starving? I always answered, "Depends on the person."
I'm thinking about food because I recently read an article about a company in Africa that grows and harvests black soldier fly larvae for animal feed. We would call these little critters maggots. InsectiPro, the company doing this, grows about 128 million of them at a time, feeding them on rotten mangos. I would imagine that all of the employees of InsectiPro run around with Kleenex stuffed up their noses because of the smell. But it's worth it, because they sell all those maggots to companies that put them in their pet food. That makes sense to me, because every dog I ever owned would chow down on anything that came within their reach, including a soiled diaper one time.
The problem that InsectiPro and other companies doing this maggot thing (and I am as amazed as you are that there is competition in this area) are having a hard time convincing pet owners to feed maggots to their little Fluffy or Fido. Only about one out of four pet owners thinks it's a good idea. Maybe the people who don't want to feed it to their pets have a better class of dog than I was associated with.
So InsectiPro has a big problem. But it gets worse. What all the people who are growing maggots want is to eventually sell their product for human consumption. Most folks seem to have a hard time with eating insects. I ate some fried grasshoppers in Mexico one time, but that was after several swigs of mescal, so I don't know if that made them more palatable. They tasted like corn nuts.
They say the maggots taste like cocoa powder. That sounds okay. But people can be very finicky about food that comes from any insect that is not a honeybee.
I made a chart showing the pros and cons of eating dried, ground-up black soldier fly maggots. This chart may help people decide if they'd like them added to their pantry.
Pro: Tastes like cocoa powder.
Con: They are maggots
Pro: Rich in vitamins and protein.
Con: They are maggots.
Pro: A good source of fats.
Con: Maggots
Pro: A very cost-effective food source.
Con: Did I mention the maggots?
Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with adding maggots to my diet. I happen to like the taste of cocoa powder, and as I said, I can choke anything down if it's edible. I’d prefer that they taste like corn nuts, but as long as they don’t taste like cilantro, I’m on board with it.
But if they want to find success in the human food industry, the folks at InsectiPro will have to find a way to make people forget they're eating maggots. I suggest they try spreading it on pizza. If people will put pineapple on pizza, they’ll certainly be okay with InsectiPro’s product.