‘We’ve been eating it for more than 100 years’: how one community turns stink bug infestations into lunch

In India’s Mizoram state, people have an intricate system of harvesting and consuming the pungent and nutritious bugs

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very few years when Udonga montana, a bamboo-feeding stink bug, erupts in massive swarms, the people of the Mizo community in northern India don’t reach for pesticides. Instead, they look for baskets.

Locally, this small brown stink bug is called thangnang. Outsiders see them as an infestation but in the bamboo forests of Mizoram state this small brown bug has long been woven into the food culture.

Drawing on generations of traditional ecological knowledge, the Mizo people have developed an intricate system of harvesting, processing and consuming the insects that not only provides high-protein nutrition but also helps control pest populations without harming the forest with pesticides.