An overdue post about the AN300 TEDxQuinnpiacU Event!

Our TEDx talk ("Don't But Out!") was a collaborative project by my Anthropology 300 class (Ancient Food for Thought). We wanted to challenge food taboos on campus and encourage students to think critically about their food practices. We began researching entomophagy, the consumption of insects, and built our TEDx talk around a central question: How does a food trend get started on a college campus? The class divided into teams: the research team, the images team, the speech writers, and, of course, the class chefs! We cooked up some chocolate ‘chirp’ cookies and cricket salsa to see how students would respond to this unusual snack. The results were overwhelmingly positive! Students were incredibly receptive to the idea of occasionally incorporating insects into their diet.

The process of putting together a TEDx talk took an enormous amount of time and hard work, but luckily we had a great team that always kept a positive attitude. The finished product far exceeded my expectations in terms of quality, insight, and humor.

I would like to thank everyone that worked on the project, but in particular Professors Julia Giblin and Jaime Ullinger, our producer Justine Tynan, and of course my amazing speech partner Jirina Fargeorge.