Entomophagy is the term used to describe the act of eating insects by animals and humans but this website will be referring to mainly insects for human consumption. Having said that, using insects for animal feed will be explored as a valid contribution towards a more sustainable food system.
There is a long, global history of humans eating insects including in Western countries. A text written by Frederic Freeman in 1858 recalls a comical incident where French troops, who had set up camp in a field upon landing in America, were seen from a distance to be running around the field "in a strange disorder". On closer inspection it was revealed that they were chasing grasshoppers around the field to capture them and BBQ them on their fire. The French were not the only ones at it!
Insects were hunted and foraged like all other food that we have become to know as familiar. In fact, a recent foraging course that I went on reminded me of the wide variety of other nutritional plant based food species that have been forgotten. Insects are currently consumed by an estimated 2 billion people across Africa, Asia, Central and South America and Australia. They have a low impact on resources and the environment, they are high in energy to body mass conversion and are full of protein, vitamins and minerals. So why are insects no longer part of the Western diet? It has been suggested that the evolution of agriculture in the West led to the domestication of animals and plants and the simplification of agro-ecosystems. Animals chosen for domestication were the most valuable in terms of the products and services they provided, for example, large mammals which supplied meat, milk, leather and transport. Bees and silkworms were also domesticated for the products they provided. As agriculture developed, the need for hunting and gathering was less and insects were no longer viewed as wild food but as pests that threatened our crops and stable food system.
Our climate is also very different to those countries that still consume insects resulting in their insects being larger and in abundance, making them easier to harvest with a stable, year round supply.
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| Photo from Indiegogo.com |
In some countries insects are harvested as a form of pest control instead of spraying with chemicals and then sold for consumption - makes good sense doesn't it?!. Although insects have been used to tackle poverty related malnutrition in developing countries and used to supplement diets when food crops are scarce, they are more often eaten out of choice for there flavour and nutritional value. There are reports that the sale of beef is reduced significantly when are particular caterpillar is in season in some African countries and I experienced first hand the excitement of the seasonal flying termite in Laos when children were overjoyed at the annual arrival of these bugs and captured them to fry for our pre dinner snack. On this occasion I was certainly more mortified by the slaughter of the piglet for our main course than I was to consume a flying insect!
Insects have always been food and still are for many people globally. It is simply our agricultural development and climate that led the West away from the inclusion of insects in our food system. Now that our population is growing, the current food system is under pressure and we have new technologies to support farming, food production and storage, is it time to revisit Entomophagy?
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