Insects as Sustainable Food Ingredients

Insects as Sustainable Food Ingredients

Author: Aaron T. Dossey

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2016-06-23

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 0128028920

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Insects as Sustainable Food Ingredients: Production, Processing and Food Applications describes how insects can be mass produced and incorporated into our food supply at an industrial and cost-effective scale, providing valuable guidance on how to build the insect-based agriculture and the food and biomaterial industry. Editor Aaron Dossey, a pioneer in the processing of insects for human consumption, brings together a team of international experts who effectively summarize the current state-of-the-art, providing helpful recommendations on which readers can build companies, products, and research programs. Researchers, entrepreneurs, farmers, policymakers, and anyone interested in insect mass production and the industrial use of insects will benefit from the content in this comprehensive reference. The book contains all the information a basic practitioner in the field needs, making this a useful resource for those writing a grant, a research or review article, a press article, or news clip, or for those deciding how to enter the world of insect based food ingredients. - Details the current state and future direction of insects as a sustainable source of protein, food, feed, medicine, and other useful biomaterials - Provides valuable guidance that is useful to anyone interested in utilizing insects as food ingredients - Presents insects as an alternative protein/nutrient source that is ideal for food companies, nutritionists, entomologists, food entrepreneurs, and athletes, etc. - Summarizes the current state-of-the-art, providing helpful recommendations on building companies, products, and research programs - Ideal reference for researchers, entrepreneurs, farmers, policymakers, and anyone interested in insect mass production and the industrial use of insects - Outlines the challenges and opportunities within this emerging industry


Edible Insects and Human Evolution

Edible Insects and Human Evolution

Author: Julie J. Lesnik

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2019-02-13

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0813065089

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Researchers who study ancient human diets tend to focus on meat eating because the practice of butchery is very apparent in the archaeological record. In this volume, Julie Lesnik highlights a different food source, tracing evidence that humans and their hominin ancestors also consumed insects throughout the entire course of human evolution. Lesnik combines primatology, sociocultural anthropology, reproductive physiology, and paleoanthropology to examine the role of insects in the diets of hunter-gatherers and our nonhuman primate cousins. She posits that women would likely spend more time foraging for and eating insects than men, arguing that this pattern is important to note because women are too often ignored in reconstructions of ancient human behavior. Because of the abundance of insects and the low risk of acquiring them, insects were a reliable food source that mothers used to feed their families over the past five million years. Although they are consumed worldwide to this day, insects are not usually considered food in Western societies. Tying together ancient history with our modern lives, Lesnik points out that insects are highly nutritious and a very sustainable protein alternative. She believes that if we accept that edible insects are a part of the human legacy, we may have new conversations about what is good to eat—both in past diets and for the future of food.


Edible Insects

Edible Insects

Author: Arnold van Huis

Publisher: Bright Sparks

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789251075951

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Edible insects have always been a part of human diets, but in some societies there remains a degree of disdain and disgust for their consumption. Although the majority of consumed insects are gathered in forest habitats, mass-rearing systems are being developed in many countries. Insects offer a significant opportunity to merge traditional knowledge and modern science to improve human food security worldwide. This publication describes the contribution of insects to food security and examines future prospects for raising insects at a commercial scale to improve food and feed production, diversify diets, and support livelihoods in both developing and developed countries. It shows the many traditional and potential new uses of insects for direct human consumption and the opportunities for and constraints to farming them for food and feed. It examines the body of research on issues such as insect nutrition and food safety, the use of insects as animal feed, and the processing and preservation of insects and their products. It highlights the need to develop a regulatory framework to govern the use of insects for food security. And it presents case studies and examples from around the world. Edible insects are a promising alternative to the conventional production of meat, either for direct human consumption or for indirect use as feedstock. To fully realise this potential, much work needs to be done by a wide range of stakeholders. This publication will boost awareness of the many valuable roles that insects play in sustaining nature and human life, and it will stimulate debate on the expansion of the use of insects as food and feed.


Edible Insects

Edible Insects

Author: Heimo Mikkola

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2020-01-29

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 1789856353

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Insect protein production through ‘mini-livestock farming’ has enormous potential to reduce the level of malnutrition in critical areas across the world. It has been estimated that insect eating is practised regularly by over two billion people, mostly in China and in most tropical countries in Africa, South America, and Asia. However, eating insects has been taboo in many western nations. Reasons for this are discussed in this book with examples from Finland and the UK. The enormous boom of insect farming in Finland started in September 2017 when the business type was legalized. However, a large part of the population found the insect food too expensive and exotic. UK research outlines a multitude of promising strategies to overcome ‘western’ resistance to eating insects. This book also includes a chapter on the potential of insect farming to increase global food security. It shows that Africa is a hotspot of edible insect biodiversity and there more than 500 species consumed daily. We have several examples of viable insect farming businesses that can fight poverty and malnutrition in developing countries and provide profit and wealth to rural farmers. The chapters of the book cover countries such as Cameroon, Ecuador, Finland, Ghana, India, Mexico, the UK, and the US.


Edible Insects in Sustainable Food Systems

Edible Insects in Sustainable Food Systems

Author: Afton Halloran

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-14

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 3319740113

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This text provides an important overview of the contributions of edible insects to ecological sustainability, livelihoods, nutrition and health, food culture and food systems around the world. While insect farming for both food and feed is rapidly increasing in popularity around the world, the role that wild insect species have played in the lives and societies of millions of people worldwide cannot be ignored. In order to represent this diversity, this work draws upon research conducted in a wide range of geographical locations and features a variety of different insect species. Edible insects in Sustainable Food Systems comprehensively covers the basic principles of entomology and population dynamics; edible insects and culture; nutrition and health; gastronomy; insects as animal feed; factors influencing preferences and acceptability of insects; environmental impacts and conservation; considerations for insect farming and policy and legislation. The book contains practical information for researchers, NGOs and international organizations, decision-makers, entrepreneurs and students.


Insects and Human Life

Insects and Human Life

Author: Brian Morris

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1845209494

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This pioneering book looks at the importance of insects to culture. While in the developed West a good deal of time and money may be spent trying to exterminate insects, in other cultures human-insect relations can be far more subtle and multi-faceted. Like animals, insects may be revered or reviled - and in some tribal communities insects may be the only source of food available. How people respond to, make use of, and relate to insects speaks volumes about their culture. In an effort to get to the bottom of our vexed relationship with the insect world, Brian Morris spent years in Malawi, a country where insects proliferate and people contend. In Malawi as in many tropical regions, insects have a profound impact on agriculture, the household, disease and medicine, and hence on oral literature, music, art, folklore, recreation and religion. Much of the complexity of human-insect relations rests on paradox: insects may represent the source of contagion, but they are also integral to many folk remedies for a wide range of illnesses. They may be at the root of catastrophic crop failure, but they can also be a form of sustenance. Weaving science with personal observations, Morris demonstrates a profound and intimate knowledge of virtually every aspect of human-insect relations. Not only is this book extraordinarily useful in terms of the more practical side of entomology, it also provides a wealth of information on the role of insects in cultural production. Malawian proverbs alone provide many such delightful examples - 'Bemberezi adziwa nyumba yake' ('The carpenter bee knows his own home'). This final volume in Morris' trilogy on Malawi's animal and insect worlds is certain to become a classic study of uncharted territory - the insect world that surrounds us and how we relate to it. Praise for The Power of Animals: Although based upon examination of a single culture, Morris incorporates ecological and anthropological concepts that expand this study of


Buzz, Sting, Bite

Buzz, Sting, Bite

Author: Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: 2019-07-02

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1982112875

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An enthusiastic, witty, and informative introduction to the world of insects and why we—and the planet we inhabit—could not survive without them. Insects comprise roughly half of the animal kingdom. They live everywhere—deep inside caves, 18,000 feet high in the Himalayas, inside computers, in Yellowstone’s hot springs, and in the ears and nostrils of much larger creatures. There are insects that have ears on their knees, eyes on their penises, and tongues under their feet. Most of us think life would be better without bugs. In fact, life would be impossible without them. Most of us know that we would not have honey without honeybees, but without the pinhead-sized chocolate midge, cocoa flowers would not pollinate. No cocoa, no chocolate. The ink that was used to write the Declaration of Independence was derived from galls on oak trees, which are induced by a small wasp. The fruit fly was essential to medical and biological research experiments that resulted in six Nobel prizes. Blowfly larva can clean difficult wounds; flour beetle larva can digest plastic; several species of insects have been essential to the development of antibiotics. Insects turn dead plants and animals into soil. They pollinate flowers, including crops that we depend on. They provide food for other animals, such as birds and bats. They control organisms that are harmful to humans. Life as we know it depends on these small creatures. With ecologist Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson as our capable, entertaining guide into the insect world, we’ll learn that there is more variety among insects than we can even imagine and the more you learn about insects, the more fascinating they become. Buzz, Sting, Bite is an essential introduction to the little creatures that make the world go round.


The Infested Mind

The Infested Mind

Author: Jeffrey Lockwood

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-09-25

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0199374937

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The human reaction to insects is neither purely biological nor simply cultural. And no one reacts to insects with indifference. Insects frighten, disgust and fascinate us. Jeff Lockwood explores this phenomenon through evolutionary science, human history, and contemporary psychology, as well as a debilitating bout with entomophobia in his work as an entomologist. Exploring the nature of anxiety and phobia, Lockwood explores the lively debate about how much of our fear of insects can be attributed to ancestral predisposition for our own survival and how much is learned through individual experiences. Drawing on vivid case studies, Lockwood explains how insects have come to infest our minds in sometimes devastating ways and supersede even the most rational understanding of the benefits these creatures provide. No one can claim to be ambivalent in the face of wasps, cockroaches or maggots but our collective entomophobia is wreaking havoc on the natural world as we soak our food, homes and gardens in powerful insecticides. Lockwood dissects our common reactions, distinguishing between disgust and fear, and invites readers to consider their own emotional and physiological reactions to insects in a new framework that he's derived from cutting-edge biological, psychological, and social science.