I lived and worked in Zambia for a while, and there — and possibly in many other countries in Africa — it was common to eat ants, grasshoppers, and caterpillars when they were in season. I never had the chance to taste the caterpillars — and it would probably have been a challenge for me — but the fried grasshoppers and ants were delicious.
The article at https://askentomologists.com/2015/02/09/why-dont-we-eat-bugs... suggests that eating insects is a “tropical” thing.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316431740_Entomopha...
In my country for instance, people eat termites, crickets, caterpillars/larvae of rynchophorus, Augosoma centurus among others.
They are a considerable source of nutriments such as proteins and lipids.
It's not out of constrain that people have them in their diet, but it's part of their culinary culture.
Of course, as people get wealthier, new habits form, they are able to afford previously unattainable food, and surely they're will a shift in the diet, but eating insects will not be eliminated.
The ants and the scorpio are quite tasty IMO.
On the other hand, I know of places where their casual vegetables are dangerous because their hold traces of animals feces with pathogens but you couldn't tell when buying them.
And finally, I remember eating the best eggs ever from my mother old neighbourg for years. One day friends from the city come, and eating them, get sick. So there is a strong habit component.
The study on insects is interesting but more informations is needed to draw conclusions.
I'm in South Africa. I've never heard of the ants thing, but it is most definitely NOT NORMAL over here to eat those things; rich people may do it as a delicacy, like they would eat caviar, but it never was normal to eat insects over here.
"Indigenous Knowledge about Consumption of Edible Insects in South Africa"
>Edible insects are a nutritious diet and play an important role in people's livelihoods in rural areas.
Just how many rich people are out there in SA's rural areas?
> This might be the main reason why the consumption of insects is largely practiced in rural areas where high levels of unemployment and people with no formal education are found. In addition, people who are unemployed consume edible insects more because they have to do so to meet nutritional requirement needs.
Well, that actually explains why I have not seen or even heard of people eating insects in the 40-odd years that I've lived here: I'm not usually talking to unemployed people in rural areas who face famine without insects.
Unemployed rural people are still in the minority, and that still makes it 'not-normal'. The poor people and unemployed people I see in non-rural South Africa still don't eat insects.
Google for 'Hormigas culonas'.
The only reason it's not more common, is the price, they are quite expensive.
The startup Ynsect at the moment is targeting Fish Farming not human.
What would be the impact over many generations of that type of food ?
I’m scared of the “SuperBug” type of disease that would be resistant to antibiotics because it’s been dormant in us for too long...
If we want to know if insect consumption can be adopted, just looking at industrialized insect farms production given to city folks is going to give us a partial understanding of what's possible.
We need to know things like:
- are those parasites massively more presents in farms than in nature (it's the case for fishes) ?
- what's the probability of the parasites to infects the average consummer ? (We eat parasites all the time)
- if this probaility is high, can a population adapt over time so that this probability goes down ?
Etc
Literally a "What do you mean 'we' Tonto?" statement.
Here in one of the oldest continuously settled by the original arrivals outside of Africa parts of the world (Australia), foods such as the Witchetty grub and the Honey ant are nutrituous high food value, much sought after delicacies and not some kind of "only in a famine" fallback.
Cook meat, make sure fruits and vegetables are not blighted, ferment dairy, various preservation methods from pickling to canning to smoking.
The list of methods is enormous.
We haven't been eating insects except in times of famine. We have not yet developed methods of dealing with it.