Why Not Eat Insects?

To many people the idea of eating insects evokes only feelings of disgust.For them, the answer to Vincent Holt's (1885) famous question seems obvious.But what does biology tell us?A wide range of vertebrates are insect eaters.The common ancestor of primates is thought to have been an insectivore.Most monkeys and apes eat insects -including the chimpanzee, our closest living relative.In contrast, many humans restrict their choice of meat to a few vertebrates, molluscs and crustaceans.In 1960 Brian Hocking, reflecting an early concern for the inevitable food shortages facing our burgeoning world population, said 'We have about 50 more years of eating steaks and then perhaps we'll have to explore other sources of animal protein....' During the last three years Gene DeFoliart's Food Insects Newsletter has been started, Holt's classic has been reprinted, and Bruno Comby's Delicieux Insectes has just been published.Is it possible that insects will become a valued source of alternative protein? Do insects have food value for Homo sapiens?Ronald Taylor (1975), in a book subtitled Insects in Human Nutrition, collated data on food values for a range of insects, comparing their protein, fat, carbohydrate, mineral, vitamin and calorific values with those for beef, lamb, pork, chicken, fish, milk and eggs.Insects contain a lot of protein, some being leaner' than trimmed beef, while others offer abundant fat calories.The amino-acid composition, although not ideal (tending to be low in methionine, cysteine and tryptophan), is easily balanced by the addition of suitable plant protein, such as corn gluten.Insects contain calcium, iron, other minerals and some vitamins (notably riboflavin).Other analyses demonstrate that, while part of the protein in insect carcasses is unavailable, being bound in the indigestible cuticle, what remains is nutritious and readily utilized.If they are so good, why don't we eat them?Food habits are not conditioned by nutritional tables, calorie counts or balanced diets.What we eat is conditioned by religion, by tradition, by fashion -in a word, by culture.As food psychologist Gerald Bennett (1988) has put it, we like what we know, we have an irrational fear of the new and, once established, food preferences are highly resistant to change.In fact, only people belonging to western European cultures, and nations derived from them, do not use insects as food.In Africa, for example, various Orthoptera (grasshoppers, locusts and tettigoniids), termites (Isoptera), and large moth caterpillars (especially certain Saturniidae, such as the so-called Mopani Worm, Gonimbrasia belina) are widely eaten.Could such insects become acceptable to western palates?Perhaps.My three-year old daughter finds fried mopani worms irresistible; her food preferences have yet to become fixed.