Entomophagy (from [Greek ἔντομος éntomos, "insect(ed)", and φᾰγεῖν phăgein, "to eat", which together means "insect eating") is the practice of eating insects as food. Entomophagy is found in taxonomic groups including insects that eat other insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals.

The term also describes human insect-eating common in cultures in parts of the world including North, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand, but uncommon and even taboo in some societies.^[1][2][3][4]

Deep fried insects sold at food stall for human consumption in Bangkok, Thailand.

[edit] Other usage

Insects,^[5] nematodes^[6] and fungi^[7] that obtain their nutrition from insects are sometimes termed entomophagous, especially in the context of biological control applications. These may also be more specifically classified into predators, parasites or parasitoids, while viruses, bacteria and fungi that grow on or inside insects may also be termed "entomopathogenic". (See also Entomopathogenic fungi) In ecology, feeding on insects is usually termed as insectivory.

Entomophagy is not simply the practice of eating insects but includes arachnids (tarantulas mainly) and myriapods (centipedes mainly).^[8] There are an estimated 1,462 species of edible insects including arachnids.^[9] And in all likelihood, there are hundreds if not thousands more that simply haven’t been sampled or perhaps not even discovered yet.

Insects and other related invertebrates have served as a food source for people for tens of thousands of years, all over the planet. Today insect eating is rare in the developed world, but insects remain a popular food in many developing regions of Central and South America, Africa, and Asia. Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Africa, Mexico, Columbia and New Guinea to name just a few, are regions where the inhabitants eat insects for nutritional value as well as for taste. Some of the more popular insect and arachnids eaten around the world are: crickets, cicadas, grasshoppers, ants, a variety of beetle grubs, such as mealworms, the larva of the Darkling Beetle, a variety of species of caterpillar, also referred to as "worms," such as bamboo worms, mopani worms, silkworms and waxworms, and finally scorpions and tarantulas.

[edit] History

Mealworms presented in a bowl, as if for human consumption.

Before humans had tools to hunt or farm, insects may have represented an important part of their diet. Evidence has been found analyzing coprolites from caves in USA and Mexico. Coprolites in caves in the Ozark Mountains were found to contain ants, beetle larvae, lice, ticks, and mites.^[10] This is not unexpected, as there are some deep evolutionary precursors. Firstly, insectivory also features to various degrees amongst primates, such as marmosets and tamarins,^[11] and indeed there is some suggestion that the earliest primates were nocturnal, arboreal insectivores.^[1] Also, most extant apes are, to a greater or lesser extent, insectivorous.^[12][13][14]

Cave paintings in Altamira, north Spain, dated to about 9,000 to 30,000 BCE, depict the collection of wild bee nests. At the time people must have eaten bee pupae and larvae with the honey. Cocoons of wild silkworm (Theophilia religiosae) were found in ruins in the Shanxi province of China, from 2,000 to 2,500 years B.C. The cocoons had large holes, suggesting the pupae were eaten.^[10] Many ancient entomophagy practices have been passed down to the present, forming traditional entomophagy.^[10]

[edit] Current examples

Lollipop with ants.

Entomophagy can be divided into two categories: insects used as a source of nutrients and insects as condiments. Some insects are eaten as larvae, others as adults. 1200 species of insects are used as food by people. Commonly eaten insects and arachnids include grasshoppers, crickets, termites, ants, beetle larvae (grubs), moth caterpillars and pupae, spiders, tarantulas, and scorpions.

The commercial exploitation of food insects has led to their decline in some places.^[15]

The consumption of Atta laevigata is traditional in some regions of Colombia and northeast Brazil.

In southern Africa, a species of moth called Gonimbrasia belina is found throughout much of the region; its large caterpillar, the mopani or mopane worm, is a source of food protein.

In Australia, Witchetty grub is an important traditional food.

Barrington Hall, a student co-op at U.C. Berkeley known for its anarchist tendencies, had a yearly insect banquet for many years until the co-op was closed down in 1990 because of the rowdy behavior of its residents. Entomophagy is also featured on some reality TV shows for its shock value.^{[citation needed]}

The Explorers Club holds an annual dinner at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel featuring a wide array of unusual dishes including many featuring insects.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Advantages

Fried insect pupae sold by a street vendor in Jinan, China, one with a bite taken out of it.

Insects can be a good source of not only protein, but also vitamins, minerals, and fats. For example, crickets are high in calcium, and termites are rich in iron. "One hundred grams of giant silkworm moth larvae provide 100 percent of the daily requirements for copper, zinc, iron, thiamin, and riboflavin. Grubs of the sago palm weevil (a staple in Papua New Guinea) are laden with unsaturated fat. Many insects contain abundant stores of lysine, an amino acid deficient in the diets of many people who depend heavily on grain".^[16]

Insects generally have a higher food conversion efficiency than more traditional meats, measured as efficiency of conversion of ingested food, or ECI.^[17] While many insects can have an energy input to protein output ratio of around 4:1, raised livestock has a ratio closer to 54:1.^[18] This is partially due to the fact that feed first needs to be grown for most traditional livestock. Additionally endothermic (warm-blooded) vertebrates need to use a significantly greater amount of energy just to stay warm whereas ectothermic (cold blooded) plants or insects do not.^[19] An index which can be used as a measure is the Efficiency of conversion of ingested food to body substance: for example, only 10% of ingested food is converted to body substance by beef cattle, versus 19–31% by silkworms and 44% by German cockroaches. Studies concerning the house cricket (Acheta domesticus) provide further evidence for the efficiency of insects as a food source. When reared at 30°C or more and fed a diet of equal quality to the diet used to rear conventional livestock, crickets showed a food conversion twice as efficient as pigs and broiler chicks, four times that of sheep, and six times higher than steers (oxen) when losses in carcass trim and dressing percentage are counted.^[10]

Mexican chapulines

Insects reproduce at a faster rate than beef animals. A female cricket can lay from 1,200 to 1,500 eggs in three to four weeks, while for beef the ratio is four breeding animals for each market animal produced. This gives house crickets a true food conversion efficiency almost 20 times higher than beef.^[10] For this reason and because of the essential amino acids content of insects, some people propose the development of entomophagy to provide a major source of protein in human nutrition. Protein production for human consumption would be more effective and consume fewer resources than vertebrate protein. This makes insect meat more ecological than vertebrate meat.

Insects have attractive qualities for food production besides their high energy efficiency. For example the spatial usage and water requirements are only a fraction of that required to produce the same mass of food with cattle farming. Production of 150g of grasshopper meat requires only very little water, while cattle requires 3290 liters to produce the same amount of beef.^[20]

[edit] Disadvantages

[edit] Toxicity

Pesticide use can make insects unsuitable for human consumption. Herbicides can accumulate in insects through bioaccumulation. For example when locust outbreaks are treated by spraying, people can no longer eat them. This may pose a problem since edible plants have been consumed by the locusts themselves.^[10]

Cases of lead poisoning after consumption of chapulines were reported by the California Department of Health Services in November 2003^[21] Adverse allergic reactions are also a possible hazard.^[22]

In the Carnia region of Italy, moths of the Zygaenidae, known for manufacturing hydrogen cyanide precursors in their body, are eaten by children despite their toxicity. The moths concerned are from the brightly coloured day-flying genus Zygaena and its mimic, Syntomis. Cyanogenic glucosides were present in the larvae and imagos (adults) as well as in the ingluvies but in extremely low quantities along with sugar which is found in much higher concentrations. Zygaena In early summer, Zygaena is very common and easy to catch by hand and the ingluvies serves as a convenient, supplementary source of sugar. Because the ingluvies have a very low cyanogenic content, children can include this resource as a seasonal delicacy at minimum risk.^[23]

[edit] Cultural taboo

Casu marzu.

Within Western culture, entomophagy (barring honey and some food dyes) is seen as taboo.^[24] There are some exceptions. Casu marzu, for example, also called casu modde, casu cundhídu, or in Italian formaggio marcio, is a cheese made in Sardinia notable for being riddled with live insect larvae. Casu marzu means "rotten cheese" in Sardinian and is known colloquially as maggot cheese. A scene in the Italian film Mondo Cane (1962) features an insect banquet for shock effect. Western avoidance of entomophagy coexists with the consumption of other invertebrates such as crustaceans and mollusks, and is not based on taste or food value.^[24] Within Judaism, most insects are not considered kosher, with only a few species of locust being accepted by certain communities (see Kosher locust). Honey is, however, considered kosher.

The anthropologist Marvin Harris has suggested that the eating of insects is taboo in cultures that have other protein sources that require less work to obtain, such as poultry or cattle, though there are cultures which feature both animal husbandry and entomophagy. Examples can be found in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe where strong cattle-raising traditions co-exist with entomophagy of insects like the mopane worm.

[edit] Unintentional ingestion

In practice, it is not possible to eliminate pest insects from the human food chain, insects are present in many foods, especially grains. Food laws in many countries do not prohibit insect parts in food, but rather, they limit the quantity. People in rice-eating regions, for example, typically ingest significant numbers of rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae) larvae, and this has been suggested as an important source of vitamins.^[25]

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.

Here are examples of food products for humans, and their maximum permissible levels of insect contamination, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's The Food Defect Action Levels booklet.^[26] Contamination below these maximum levels presents, according to the FDA, no health hazard.

See source for information on other food products.

[edit] See also

• Casu marzu
• The Eat-A-Bug Cookbook (book)
• Ethnoentomology
• Insectivore
• Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects (book)
• Taboo food and drink

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Holt, Vincent Why Not Eat Insects? 1885 Pamphlet Full text of the 1885 pamphlet Why Not Eat Insects by Vincent Holt, with French cuisine recipes
• Sri Kantha, S. Insect eating in Japan. Nature, Nov.24, 1988; 336: 316–317.
• Ichinose, K. More insect eating. Nature, Feb.9, 1989; 337: 513–514.
• DeFoliart, G. Insects as human food. Crop Protection, 1992; 11: 395–399.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Entomophagy

• Staff writer (2007). "Edible insects". New Scientist 2595: 56. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19325952.600-the-word-edible-insects.html. 
• Gene R. DeFoliart (2002-09-29). "The Human Use of Insects as a Food Resource: A Bibliographic Account in Progress". University of Wisconsin–Madison. http://www.food-insects.com/book7_31/The%20Human%20Use%20of%20Insects%20as%20a%20Food%20Resource.htm. 
• Jeff Stewart. "Understanding the Role of Insects in Foods and Foodways". Creepy Crawly Cooking. http://www.creepycrawlycooking.com/. 
• Ian Frazier (1997). "It's Hard to Eat Just One". Outside. http://outside.away.com/magazine/0497/9704feeat.html. 
• Lana Unger (1999-01-20). "Insect Snacks from Around the World". University of Kentucky. http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/ythfacts/bugfood/yf813.htm. 
• Gene DeFoliart. "Insects as Food". http://www.food-insects.com/. 
• "How many insect parts and rodent hairs are allowed in your food?". Sixwise.com. http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/05/06/29/how_many_insect_parts_and_rodent_hairs_are_allowed_in_your_food.htm. 
• Rob Toms & Mashudu Thagwana (2003). "Eat your bugs - harvesting edible stink-bugs". Science in Africa. http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2003/october/stinkbug.htm. 
• Peter Menzel & Faith D'Aluisio (1998). "Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects". Ten Speed Press ISBN 1580080227. http://weeklywire.com/ww/04-05-99/austin_food_feature1.html. 
• "Man Bites Insect" by Sam Nejame New York Times Sunday Magazine February 10, 2008:
• "Food Insects Newsletter". hollowtop.com. http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/finl.html.