A comprehensive analysis of research studies from the past decades on the use of edible insects as human food reveals accelerating interest and identifying key trends that could promote wider acceptance and utilization of insects to enhance global food security.
The findings have been published as open access in International Journal of Tropical Insect Science.
Analysis of the 1376 documents revealed dramatically escalating productivity in the last decade, with over 100 papers published annually after 2017. In total, 45 countries contributed, but the research landscape is dominated by Western nations like the United States, Italy, South Korea and the Netherlands, suggesting surging interest in assessing insects as a novel food source where eating insects, known as entomophagy, is uncommon.
With the world’s population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, finding sustainable and nutritious food sources is a pressing challenge. The overuse of land and water resources to produce conventional livestock threatens food security, rural livelihoods and environmental ecosystems. Insects offer great promise as an alternative mini livestock requiring less feed, land and water to produce high-quality nutrition.
While insect eating, known as entomophagy, is an ancient practice still thriving in many regions, including parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania, Western cultures remain largely skeptical. To understand the state of insect nutrition research, scientists conducted a bibliometric analysis of all studies published on edible insects, entomophagy and insects as food from 1953 through October 2021.
The research spans a diverse array of fields from agriculture to environmental science to psychology, with prolific international collaboration indicating that geography is not a limiting factor. Analysis of keywords and leading journals revealed several hot topic areas:
Indigenous Knowledge
Many documents focused on Africa, where insects are widely consumed. Preserving traditional techniques like collection and preparation supports food security and rural economies. Standardizing insect names and uses facilitates global collaboration.
Sustainability
With animal agriculture stressed by climate change and population growth, insect mini livestock provide comparable nutrition with reduced environmental impact. Their efficient feed conversion supports sustainability efforts and the circular economy by transforming waste streams to valuable products.
Health Benefits
Insects supply complete protein, healthy fats, minerals and bioactive compounds that support immunity, gut health and antioxidant activity. Further research can provide more details about the health benefits of edible insects by fully characterizing nutritional profiles and functional properties.
Farming Systems
Controlled insect rearing and insect farming systems improves availability while limiting overharvesting pressures on wild populations. Byproduct streams from food processing can provide insect feedstocks and reduce waste.
Consumer Attitudes
Neophobia, the fear or refusal of new foods, coupled with entomophobia, the disgust of eating insects, creates barriers to mainstream acceptance of entomophagy in the West. Strategies like taste exposure and insect incorporation into familiar foods can help overcome both obstacles and increase willingness to adopt entomophagy.
Food Safety
Hazard analysis, risk assessment and monitoring for heavy metals and pathogens throughout the supply chain ensures safe production. Regulations are needed as the industry scales up.
The review revealed research gaps around lesser-studied insects, protein techno-functionality, and risk assessments. Key recommendations include continued documentation of traditional knowledge, international regulatory harmonization, dedicated research funding streams, and special journal issues exploring indigenous entomophagy.
Protein techno-functionality refers to the physical and chemical properties of insect protein ingredients that impact their utilization and performance in food products, such as solubility, gelling ability, emulsification capacity and foam stability. Due to the lack of standardized fractionation processes, studies on the techno-functionalities of proteins derived from edible insects are still limited.
As climate change and population growth strain current resources, insects offer an ancient solution reimagined through modern research. With growing investigation into farming, processing, nutrition and consumer attitudes, entomophagy could soon breakthrough as a mainstream sustainable protein source. Concerted effort to learn from indigenous cultures while innovating techniques to safely scale production can drive this nutritional powerhouse into the global food system.