Anthropo‐entomophagy: Cultures, evolution and sustainability

Abstract

Environmental cycles and human factors have altered ecosystems throughout the world. Natural resources have acquired high value because they are important to life and the survival of human beings. Among these resources are edible insects. They have many important features and, to date, up to 2086 species are consumed by 3071 ethnic groups. Rural people, who primarily search, gather, fix, commercialize and store this important natural resource, do not exterminate them. This is because rural people exploit only the central part of the insects' population curves. Nonetheless, some species are overexploited. Anthropo-entomophagy (eating of insects by humans) constitutes a major source of nutrition and these foods are eaten in 130 countries, with the African and American continents being the most entomophagous until now. It exists in protocultures (care is given to the edible insect species) and formal cultures, such as in Mexico, which date back to prehisphanic times. According to anthropologists the "saving gene theory" is based on insect ingestion, which, since the Paleolithic era, has given human beings reproductive success. The evolution of anthropo-entomophagy has been achieved in many ways, from the point of view of collection, fixing, marketing and consumption, and for the insects' organoleptical qualities. The sustainability of these species is fundamental; therefore, it is necessary to take certain measures for species conservation. In Mexico, more than 100 species of edible insects have been tested for their sustainability over 500 years, from the Spanish conquest to the present.

A Comprehensive Look at the Possibilities of Edible Insects as Food in Europe – A Review

“…Plio-Pleistocene bone tools in the Sterkfontein Valley were for example used to dig for termites [Backwell & d'Errico, 2001]. By all accounts, which include archeological evidence as well as analysis of fossilized feces, humankind has evolved as an entomophagous species [Sutton, 1995;Ramos-Elorduy, 2009].…”

Mealworms for Food: A Water Footprint Perspective

“…Nowadays, there are about 2000 species of insects regularly eaten in the world by about two billion people (over 3000 ethnic groups), i.e., one third of the world population, in approximately 80% of countries [19,20].…”

“…Both mealworms are promising and valid alternative sources of nutrients for humans [11] and both can be reared very well on organic side streams [20].…”

Bug Delicacies: Insects as a Powerful Food Resource for a Troubled World

“…For example, Mexico is one of the best known countries regarding entomophagy, a practice still in use. This impressive knowledge is mainly the results of the efforts of Dr. Julieta Ramos-Elorduy and her group at the Universidad Autónoma de México [13,17,20,22]. It is important to note that north of Mexico, the importance of insects in the culture of native peoples is poorly documented, very probably because of a stronger influence of European colonists that did not make many efforts to preserve native cultural traditions Comprehensive studies of this kind are also starting in Brazil, an enormous country with one of the highest indices of insect biodiversity in the world and no less than 222 indigenous ethnic groups recognized by the state [28].…”

“…Sacred texts such as the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) and the Qur´an contain references to the consumption of insects which evidently was a common practice among desert nomads [10]. Eating insects is still a very common practice in many parts of the world as part of ancient traditions preserved in different cultures of Asia, Australia, Africa and the Americas [3,[11][12][13][14]. Despite this, Western civilization has traditionally been prejudiced against entomophagy which is strange considering that other arthropods (e.g crustaceans) are widely consumed [15,16] although this trend is slowly reversing as the edition of cook-books offering insect recipes increases [10, [17][18][19].…”