Insects | TableDebates

Photo credit: Stephan Mosel, Flickr, creative commons 2.0)

Positive consumer responses to insect burger

Belgian researchers have undertaken blind taste tests in which individuals are asked to rate the taste of a normal meat burger, a vegetarian burger and a burger made with mealworms.

IPBES Assessment report: Pollinators vital to our food supply under threat

More than three-quarters of the world's food crops are at least partly dependent on pollination and in many regions over 40 percent of the bees and the butterflies are threatened with extinction, according to a new report entitled Thematic Assessment of Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production.

A pile of edible insects. Photo by Nathan Cima via Unsplash.

Edible Insects for Food and Feed: Farming micro livestock for food security in a climate change challenged world (part 1)

This post focuses on insect farming for human consumption. With a research-for-development perspective, author Wendy Lu McGill examines the political, cultural, and regulatory aspects of how insect farming could work in places where insect eating is most common. This piece also compares these developments with how insect farming operates in the Global North as a novel food production practice. This is the first in a series of blogs on insects that Wendy will be writing for the FCRN. A second blog-post discusses the use of insects as feed for animals.This week we are pleased to publish the first blog-post from Wendy Lu McGill, a PhD researcher at the Plant and Agribiosciences Research Centre (PABC) working with Prof. Charles Spillane and Dr. Peter McKeown at the National University of Ireland Galway.

Entomics: Cambridge-based start-up turning food waste into biofuel with the help of Black Soldier Flies

The Cambridge News reports on a recent start-up called Entomics, who are researching and developing the use of Black Soldier Fly larvae as a means of converting food waste into compounds that can be extracted and turned into more useful products.

Insect oil a new sustainable source of Omega 3

This ScienceDaily article describes how researchers at Wageningen University and Research Centre have shown that insect oils – currently extracted from insects alongside the desired edible proteins but discarded as a waste product – contain omega-3 fatty acids.

WRAP report: Food futures – from business as usual to business unusual

This report, Food Futures, by the UK’s waste agency WRAP, looks at a broad range of food sustainability challenges for the future and at possible solutions.

Use of Insects In Animal Feed Seen As Favourable By Farmers, Sector and Consumers

This research suggests that attitudes towards the use of insects in animal feed and resulting livestock products are generally positive. The paper finds that of those interviewed (farmers, agriculture sector stakeholders and citizens in Belgium), two thirds accept the idea of using insects in animal feed, and in particularly feel positively towards their potential role in improving the sustainability of animal diets.

Poor attitudes in the west will stop insects being food

A decline in meat production combined with further increase in demand could spur businesses to look for alternative food protein sources, said Media Eghbal, head of countries analysis at Euromonitor International when being interviewed by the Food navigator.

Commercialising edible insects – How to market the impossible

About 1900 species of insects are eaten worldwide by at least 2 billion people – not because they are short of food, but out of choice. But for most Western consumers the idea of insects as food is disgusting. However, a handful of entrepreneurial start-ups are working to change this.