Perception of entomophagy by residents of Korea and Ethiopia revealed through structured questionnaire

A survey involving 329 randomly selected respondents (172 male; 157 female) from Korea and 203 (109 male; 94 female) from Ethiopia has revealed that significantly fewer of the Ethiopian respondents were prepared to accept insects as human food than Koreans did. Vertical transmission of entomophagic knowledge was important for Koreans, but of negligible importance to Ethiopians. In both cultures male subjects were more inclined to accept insects as food. Koreans and Ethiopians would accept cookies containing insect components in preference to other food items with insects, but only 11.1% of the Ethiopians versus 45.6% of the Koreans would be willing to serve a meal containing insects. The results show that the widely held opinion that citizens of industrialised, developed countries were less inclined towards eating insects than inhabitants of poorer, less industrialised, developing countries is not generalizable and therefore is wrong. Reasons for the observed differences in attitudes towards entomophagy between Ethiopians and Koreans appear to be related to history, habits, traditions and familiarity as well as possibly religious beliefs and the channels through which the information on insects as human food reaches the people.