EW’S 2015 HEALTH ISSUE
White
Buggin’ Out
Dental
Portland company with Eugene roots produces powdered crickets | By William Kennedy
C
harles Wilson is founder and CEO of Portland-based
Cricket Flours, a platform food ingredient and con-
sumer food product company.
Wilson says his mother’s gluten-intolerance in-
spired the business. He founded the enterprise during his last
year of law school at the University of Oregon.
“Ten or 15 years ago my mom got diagnosed,” Wilson tells
EW, “and she couldn’t have gluten anymore.”
About four years ago, Wilson and his sisters were also di-
agnosed gluten intolerant. Wilson’s family had to make signif-
icant changes to their diets. “That’s what led me to find cricket
protein sources,” he says. “The whole idea is to get this new
type of food ingredient into your favorite recipes — dishes,
shakes, smoothies. It’s basically a way to incorporate more pro-
tein into your diet.”
The crickets used in Cricket Flours’ products are raised in
facilities approved for human consumption by the FDA. The
insects’ diets are tightly controlled.
“This way there’s no pesticides,” Wilson says. “Or, if we
want a non-GMO, organic-type thing, we can do that.”
“At about six weeks they’re able to be processed,” Wilson
explains, “and they’re either frozen, freeze-dried or baked —
depends on the process used. The moisture is removed. It’s
milled like a normal type of flour, and that 100-percent pure
cricket flour is used in our different product lines.”
Cricket Flours has produced a
cookbook called All Cricket,
No Bull, which is about
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to go into its second edition. Wilson says cricket protein is often
used in energy bars, but it’s slowly making its way into shakes,
smoothies and all manner of baked goods.
“It’s still kind of an emerging market,” Wilson admits. “You
can use it in dressings and sauces. It has a slightly nutty or neu-
tral taste, and it can be incorporated into a lot of dishes you are
probably already making at home.”
“If you use our all-purpose baking flour,” Wilson adds, “you
get about 35 percent more protein in addition to iron and calci-
um and magnesium.” He says cricket flour has about the same
amount of iron as spinach.
So how do Wilson and his company surmount the possible
consumer “ick-factor” around eating insects?
“It’s something that we embrace,” he laughs.
“It’s a little bit out there,” he admits, “but when you start
talking about the sustainability or the environmental effect —
we use less land, we’re more efficient than beef — when you
start talking about these other aspects, it becomes a little bit
more normal.”
“It’s like rediscovering something that 80 percent of the
world already eats,” Wilson says. “In the Pacific Northwest, we
have Native Americans who pound and grind up insects. It’s
going back to what our ancestors already knew.”
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For more information about Cricket Flours and its product, go to cricketflours.com.
EVI by phone 24 hours:
541-342-4113
www. eviaa.org | www.aa.org
Do you fi nd yourself setting
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Are you frustrated because
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Mayo Clinic trained doctor
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THE AUTHOR PAUSES
TO CONTEMPLATE HIS
DECISION TO EAT CRICKETS
Available Now
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and for kindle and nook.
PHOTO: TRASK BEDORTHA
eugeneweekly.com • December 31, 2015
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