Адамдардың жәндіктерді тамақ ретінде пайдалануының мәдени және тарихи аспектілері

Practice of eating insects in human cultures

Entomophagy in humans or human entomophagy describes the consumption of insects (entomophagy) by humans in a cultural and biological context. The scientific term used in anthropology, cultural studies, biology and medicine is anthropo entomophagy. Anthropo entomophagy does not include the eating of arthropods other than insects such as arachnids and myriapods, which is defined as arachnophagy. Entomophagy is scientifically documented as widespread among non human primates and common among many human communities. The eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults of certain insects have been eaten by humans from prehistoric times to the present day. Around 3,000 ethnic groups practice entomophagy. Human insect eating is common to cultures in most parts of the world, including Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Eighty percent of the world's nations eat insects of 1,000 to 2,000 species. FAO has registered some 1,900 edible insect species and estimates that there were, in 2005, around two billion insect consumers worldwide. FAO suggests eating insects as a possible solution to environmental degradation caused by livestock production. In some societies, primarily western nations, entomophagy is uncommon or taboo. While insect eating is uncommon in North America and Europe, insects remain a popular food elsewhere, and some companies are trying to introduce insects as food into Western diets. Insects eaten around the world include crickets, cicadas, grasshoppers, ants, various beetle grubs (such as mealworms, the larvae of the darkling beetle), and various species of caterpillar (such as bamboo worms, mopani worms, silkworms and waxworms).

Evidence suggests that evolutionary precursors of Homo sapiens were entomophagous and arachnophagous. Insectivory also features to various degrees amongst extant primates, such as marmosets and tamarins, and some researchers suggest that the earliest primates were nocturnal, arboreal insectivores. The archaeological record, in the form of bone tools with wear marks, shows that early hominids such as Australopithecus robustus would gather termites for consumption. Lesnik also reviews multiple studies concluding that wear marks running along the length of the bone are indicative of tools used for digging up termite mounds. These markings are different than those on tools that might have been used to dig up plants and roots, which would have wear marks in multiple directions from digging at a horizontal angle and possibly hitting rocks which are not present in termite hills. Similarly a review of isotope studies show that A. robustus was not eating large amounts of plants and fruits as a source of protein, but it was instead being fulfilled by other means such as animal or insect protein. The remains of KNM ER 1808, a specimen of Homo erectus dated to around 1.8 million years ago, has often been used as evidence for the hunter model due to its abnormal bone growths pointing to hypervitaminosis A from consuming excess animal liver. However, Mark Skinner has proposed that consuming bee larvae and pupae could also provide enough vitamin A to cause hypervitaminosis A.

Cave paintings in Altamira, north Spain, which have been dated from about 30,000 to 9,000 BC, depict the collection of edible insects and wild bee nests, suggesting a possibly entomophagous society. Africa, Mexico and South America as cheap and sustainable sources of protein. Up to 2,086 species are eaten by 3,071 ethnic groups in 130 countries. Insects are known to be eaten in 80 percent of the world's nations. Udonga montana is a pentatomid bug that has periodic population outbreaks and is eaten in northeastern India. Traditionally several ethnic groups in Indonesia are known to consume insects—especially grasshoppers, crickets, termites, the larvae of the sago palm weevil, and bees. In Java and Kalimantan, grasshoppers and crickets are usually lightly battered and deep fried in palm oil as a crispy kripik or rempeyek snack. In Banyuwangi, East Java, there is a specialty botok called botok tawon (honeybee botok), which is beehives that contains bee larvae, being seasoned in spices and shredded coconut, wrapped inside a banana leaf package and steamed. Dayak tribes of Kalimantan, also Moluccans and Papuan tribes in Eastern Indonesia, are known to consume ulat sagu (lit. 'sagoo caterpillar') or larvae of sago palm weevil. These protein rich larvae are considered as a delicacy in Papua, eaten both roasted or uncooked. In Thailand, certain insects are also consumed, especially in northern provinces. Traditional markets in Thailand often have stalls selling deep fried grasshoppers, cricket (ching rit), bee larvae, silkworm (non mai), ant eggs (khai mot) and termites. The use of insects as an ingredient in traditional foodstuffs in places such as Hidalgo in Mexico has been on a large enough scale to cause their populations to decline. In East Africa, Kunga cake is a food made of densely compressed flies.

As early as around 700 BC. In 400 BC an Assyrian depiction depicted a feast with locusts as a delicacy. Both the Bible and the Quran contain references to eating locusts. Even in ancient times, the Greeks and Romans ate insects and especially their larvae, for example bees and cicadas. Pliny's cossus dwelling in oak, probably a wood borer caterpillar, was considered a delicacy by the Greeks and Romans. The great capricorn beetle (Cerambyx cerdo syn. C. heros) is considered a strong candidate for identification of cossus by some authorities,Refn|group="lower alpha"|Mulsant (1841a)(repub. ), and Maimonides (Rambam) identified eight "species" of insects, including grasshoppers and crickets. But with the grasshoppers, honey and shellac scale insects as exception, insects are overall non kosher. It may be worth noting John the Baptist's "wild honey" is explained as tasting like manna, made into cakes, in the Gospel of the Ebionites. Furthermore, manna is hypothesized as being the honeydew of scale insectsRefn|Identified as Trabutina mannipara (obs. Coccus manniparus Ehrenberg) by German born Israeli entomologist Friedrich Simon Bodenheimer By 2011, a few restaurants in the Western world regularly served insects. For example, two places in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, offered cricket based items: (Vij's Restaurant had parathas made from roasted crickets ground into a powder or meal, and its sister restaurant, Rangoli Restaurant, offered pizza made by sprinkling whole roasted crickets on naan dough). Aspire Food Group was the first large scale insect farming company in North America, using automated machinery in a warehouse dedicated to raising organically grown house crickets for human consumption.

Within Western culture, entomophagy (barring some food additives, such as carmine and shellac) is seen as taboo. The disgust associated with the taboo is used in Western media. For example, a scene in the 1962 Italian film Mondo Cane features an insect banquet for shock effect, and a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) features insects as part of a similar banquet for shock factor. Western avoidance of entomophagy coexists with the consumption of other invertebrates such as molluscs and the insects' close arthropod relatives crustaceans, and is not based on taste or food value. Within Judaism, most insects are not considered kosher, with the disputed exception of a few species of "kosher locust" which are accepted by certain communities. Public health nutritionist Alan Dangour has argued that large scale entomophagy in Western culture faces "extremely large" barriers, which are "perhaps currently even likely to be insurmountable." There is widespread disgust at entomophagy in the West, the image of insects being "unclean and disease carrying". The anthropologist Marvin Harris has suggested that the eating of insects is taboo in cultures that have other protein sources which require more work to obtain, such as poultry or cattle, though there are cultures which feature both animal husbandry and entomophagy. Examples can be found in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe where strong cattle raising traditions co exist with entomophagy of insects like the mopane worm. In addition, people in cultures where entomophagy is common are not indiscriminate in their choice of insects, as Thai consumers of insects perceive edible insects not consumed within their culture in a similar way as Western consumers.

The U. S. Food and Agriculture Organization has displayed an interest in developing entomophagy on multiple occasions. In 2008, the FAO organized a conference to "discuss the potential for developing insects in the Asia and Pacific region." According to Durst, FAO efforts in entomophagy will focus on regions in which entomophagy has been historically accepted but has recently experienced a decline in popularity. In 2011, the European Commission issued a request for reports on the current use of insects as food, with the promise that reports from each European Union member state would serve to inform legislative proposals for the new process for insect foods. According to NPR, the European Union is investing more than 4 million dollars to research entomophagy as a human protein source.

Assessments of the potential of large scale entomophagy have led some experts to suggest insects as a potential alternative protein source to conventional livestock, citing possible benefits including greater efficiency, lower resource use, increased food security, and environmental and economic sustainability. They have dietary fiber and include mostly unsaturated fat and contain some vitamins and essential minerals.

While more attention is needed to fully assess the potential of edible insects, they provide a natural source of essential nutrients, offering an opportunity to bridge the gap in protein consumption between poor and wealthy nations and also to lighten the ecological footprint. Many insects contain abundant stores of lysine, an amino acid deficient in the diets of many people who depend heavily on grain. Some argue that the combination of increasing land use pressure, climate change, and food grain shortages due to the use of maize as a biofuel feedstock will cause serious challenges for attempts to meet future protein demand. Insects as food and feed have emerged as an especially relevant issue in the 21st century due to the rising cost of animal protein, food and feed insecurity, environmental pressures, population growth and increasing demand for protein among the middle classes. At the 2013 International Conference on Forests for Food Security and Nutrition, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations released a publication titled Edible insects Future prospects for food and feed security describing the contribution of insects to food security. The spatial usage and water requirements are only a fraction of that required to produce the same mass of food with cattle farming. Production of 150g of grasshopper meat requires very little water, while cattle require 3290 liters to produce the same amount of beef. The high growth and intensity of animal agriculture has caused ecological damage worldwide; with meat production predicted to double from now to 2050, maintaining the status quo's environmental impact would demand a 50 percent reduction of impacts per unit of output. As the FAO states, animal livestock "emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." In total, the emissions of the livestock sector account for 18 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, a greater share than the transportation sector. While many insects can have an energy input to protein output ratio of around 4:1, raised livestock has a ratio closer to 54:1. This is partially due to the fact that feed first needs to be grown for most traditional livestock. Additionally, endothermic (warm blooded) vertebrates need to use a significantly greater amount of energy just to stay warm, whereas ectothermic (cold blooded) plants or insects do not. An index that can be used as a measure is the Efficiency of conversion of ingested food to body substance: for example, only 10% of ingested food is converted to body substance by beef cattle, versus 19–31% by silkworms and 44% by German cockroaches. Studies concerning the house cricket (Acheta domesticus) provide further evidence for the efficiency of insects as a food source. When reared at 30 °C or more and fed a diet of equal quality to the diet used to rear conventional livestock, crickets showed a food conversion twice as efficient as pigs and broiler chicks, four times that of sheep, and six times higher than steers when losses in carcass trim and dressing percentage are counted. In Thailand, two types of edible insects (cricket and palm weevil larvae) are commonly farmed in the north and south respectively. Cricket farming approaches throughout the northeast are similar and breeding techniques have not changed much since the technology was introduced 15 years ago. Small scale cricket farming, involving a small number of breeding tanks, is rarely found today and most of the farms are medium or large scale enterprises. Community cooperatives of cricket farmers have been established to disseminate information on technical farming, marketing and business issues, particularly in northeastern and northern Thailand. Cricket farming has developed into a significant animal husbandry sector and is the main source of income for a number of farmers. In 2013, there were approximately 20,000 farms operating 217,529 rearing pens. have been founded in the 2010s with the aim of modernizing insect rearing techniques, permitting the scale and efficiency gains required for insects to displace other animal proteins in the human food supply.

Edible insects can provide economic, nutritional, and ecological advantages to the indigenous populations that raise them. For instance, the mopane worm of South Africa provides a "flagship taxon" for the conservation of mopane woodlands. Some researchers have argued that edible insects provide a unique opportunity for insect conservation by combining issues of food security and forest conservation through a solution that includes appropriate habitat management and recognition of local traditional knowledge and enterprises.

There is potential for insects to be used as a protein source in insect based pet food. Novel protein sources have possible benefits for pets with sensitive gastrointestinal tracts or food allergies, as the proteins are not recognized by the animal's body, and therefore are less likely to cause irritation. Insects have also been shown to have a high palatibility to both companion and livestock animals. They have a good amino acid profile, and also contain many essential nutrients for companion animals. Insects have also been shown to have a high digestibility in pets. There have been studies done evaluating the protein quality of commonly used insects and their nutrient values in comparison to traditional pet food protein.

Spore forming bacteria can spoil both raw and cooked insect protein, threatening to cause food poisoning. While edible insects must be processed with care, simple methods are available to prevent spoilage. Boiling before refrigeration is recommended; drying, acidification, or use in fermented foods also seem promising.

In general, many insects are herbivorous and less problematic than omnivores. Cooking is advisable in ideal circumstances since parasites of concern may be present. But pesticide use can make insects unsuitable for human consumption. Herbicides can accumulate in insects through bioaccumulation. For example, when locust outbreaks are treated by spraying, people can no longer eat them. This may pose a problem since edible plants have been consumed by the locusts themselves. Cases of lead poisoning after consumption of chapulines were reported by the California Department of Health Services in November 2003.

Adverse allergic reactions are a potential hazard of insect consumption. Cross reactivity between edible insects and crustaceans has been identified as clinically relevant in one review. A study on the prevalence of allergies to edible insects in Thailand indicated that:[A]pproximately 7.4% of people experienced an adverse reaction indicative of an edible insect allergy and 14.7% of people experienced multiple adverse reactions indicative of an edible insect allergy. Furthermore, approximately 46.2% of people who already suffer from a known food based allergy also experienced symptoms indicative of an allergic reaction after insect consumption.

The humaneness of insect consumption has been questioned. One objection is the large numbers of individuals raised and killed per unit of protein—exacerbated by a high tendency towards premature mortality—in comparison to other animal based foods. The potential for insects to be conscious, and as a result experience pain and suffering, has also been raised as a concern.

Concerns have been raised about the sustainability of insect consumption, such as overexploitation due to wild harvesting. Food used to feed the insects raised for consumption may also have a large environmental footprint, which when scaled up, could potentially make insect consumption similarly sustainable to traditional protein sources, negating any alleged benefit. Additionally, edible insect preservation processes such as freeze drying and grinding may use a large amount of energy. Insect consumption has been suggested to be more sustainable than consumption of other animals.