Talk:Insects as food

Contested deletion
This article should not be speedy deleted as being recently created, having no relevant page history and duplicating an existing English Wikipedia topic, because:

This is not a duplicate article:
 * Entomophagy describes the process of eating insects by humans (and animals), this is connected to certain cultural aspects, such as a certain country-specific cuisine, acceptance, taboo etc.
 * Edible insects (insects as food) in difference to that are certain insect species that can be used for human consumption, or processed into insect-based food products (insect burgers, insect bread, insect pasta). Example: A mealworm is an edible insect, a house cricket is an edible insect. They are food such as soy, minced meat, etc., have certain nutritional profiles, ways of production, legal framework (e.g.: cricket, mealworm and locust are authorized as food in Switzerland).

The first is a culture-related article, the second is an article based on nutritional science, food production and food law. For the first article you would search for scientific literature in the area of cultural studies, psychology, anthropology. For the latter you would search for scientific literature in the area of nutritional and food science, food technology, agricultural technology, etc.

To develop the whole topic under an article focused on the culture and process of eating insects is just misleading. We need a second article Insects as food (with Edible insects redirecting to it), just describing the food aspects (nutritional profile, farming/production, authorization). I started an article here, TheLongTone reverted my edits. This article should stay, both have to be developed seperated from another. --AlienFood (talk) 15:10, 24 October 2018 (UTC)


 * For the record, I don't agree; both terms cover all the included issues, and have both been used indifferently for those purposes since the Second World War. Chiswick Chap (talk) 00:48, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Rename to 'Edible insects'
Given the change in the article's focus, and its equation to 'Edible insects', it should be moved to that title. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:32, 19 November 2018 (UTC)


 * We can discuss this. But I also want to highlight that the equivalent article on edible fish species is named Fish as food, so Insects as food fits that pattern. --AlienFood (talk) 09:58, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

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Wiki Education assignment: ERTH 4303 Resources of the Earth
— Assignment last updated by ChloejWard (talk) 03:39, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for allowing my contributions! Happy editing everyone, EaglesEyes1 (talk) 04:01, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

history off insects as food
there are many places where insects are eaten regular. like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_martzu https://www.wikihow.com/Cook-Tarantula-Spiders the aborigini people dig up roots with catapilar larves. there is a lot off history with insects on our plate. Perhaps we got our first B12 from insects like wurm cq larves in fruits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.149.83.125 (talk) 12:55, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Why is there no criticism section?
No criticism section implying that everyone is happy to be eating mealworms. Also, what about labeling? Will all these insects be clearly named on the ingredients list? 79.166.3.165 (talk) 00:11, 22 July 2023 (UTC)


 * People who don't want to eat mealworms should just.... not eat them??? Also, the FDA (and it's respective counterparts in other countries) require the accurate labeling of ingredients in their common or usual name; insects ingredients are legally required to be labeled and there is zero effort or move to change that :) 2601:648:8800:3B70:B044:EA15:8CAE:7147 (talk) 06:40, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
 * With a focus on consumption of insects as an alternative to reduce climate change, it is worth discussing cultural aversion to it, especially if consumption of insects is predicted to be normalized on the same level as beef, fish, chicken, et cetera, or expected to become a potential replacement for these products. The aversion section is a good addition. 2A01:799:A56:9100:B52:ACC5:4B7:5298 (talk) 10:56, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The answer would be that no one has gotten around to it yet. I wouldn't say we specifically need a criticism section, but there is an empty section for aversion under challenges, which seems like the best place to add information about cultural taboos. Feel free to be bold whenever you feel you can improve a page. I'll look into what I can do myself here. Clovermoss 🍀  (talk) 12:41, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Overwhelmingly Western focus
The very start of the article mentions 2 billion people depending on insects as a food source, and yet... does not seem to, at any point, discuss the insects those people consume, nor how they are prepared. There are sections on taste and food safety, but these likewise discuss exclusively insect species of Europe and North America (mostly outside Mexico, at that), not a single thought given to the insect species used to far greater success elsewhere in the Americas, Africa or Asia. If I had the knowledge and reference base to amend this I'd have gone editing myself, but as it stands this article reads less like an article on how humans use insects as food, and more as a several page long talk from a company invested in selling insects as food in the West specifically. 62.166.184.209 (talk) 05:01, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Graphic "Number of edible insect species per country"
The map is very wrong. Just for example: There are edible insects all over Europe, some are even mentioned in the article. I don't know what data was used to make it but there are so many issues with it, it should be removed. --217.240.192.86 (talk) 00:31, 12 February 2024 (UTC)