Eat’em or not? insects as a culinary delicacy

Introduction: The world´s population is increasing and thus the pressure on the earth´s resources. To ensure food supply and sustainability, food habits in western societies have to change. By reducing the ecological footprint of food consumption, e.g., decrease meat consumption, significant contribution to global sustainability can be achieved. Advantages concerning nutrition and sustainability have been found by inclusion of insects in the diet. Insects as food has a large potential, and the “culinary way” seems to be an effective way to reach consumer acceptance for insect based food products. The aim was to examine consumer acceptance and neophobia related to the use of insects as ingredients in food.

Methods: Food neophobia, attitudes and acceptance was surveyed by a web-based questionnaire answered by 150 respondents.

Results: Preliminary results showed significantly higher acceptance for insect protein added to foods as “insect-flour” than for added whole insects in a food. The interest of buying insect protein as a powder was higher than of buying whole insects. Further, 24 of the respondents (corresponding to 16%) could be considered as neophobic.

Discussion: To reach acceptance of insect protein culinary food could include “non-visible” insects. This is in line with the fact that food neophobia and acceptance are influenced by the good taste and benefits of the actual food. Further, neophobia varies over the life course.

Conclusions: The use of insect protein in food as a powder has a higher acceptance than use of whole insects. 16% of the respondent were considered as neophobic.