Insects have been part of the human diet for thousands of years and it is estimated that today entomophagy, i.e. the practice of consuming them as food, affects about two billion people worldwide.
Interest in this practice has been growing since the FAO, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, published a report on the future prospects of insects for human nutrition in 2013. However, in Western countries where there is no traditional culture of entomophagy, they tend not to be considered as a food. But are Italians willing to include them in their diet? This is what we investigated in the research conducted at the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo.
In Europe, most scientific studies on entomophagy have explored consumer perceptions of edible insects in general. In our study, on the other hand, we felt it was important to study the perception of specific insects, as these have different compositional and sensory characteristics that could influence consumers’ judgment.
With an online survey we asked four hundred people about their willingness to consume six different species of insects among the most bred for human use, three of which in the larval stage (flour larva, silkworm larva and bee larva). and three in their adult state (cricket, locust and giant water bug), assuming they are eaten as they are and as ingredients in products or dishes (pasta made with cricket flour, rice sautéed with silkworm larvae, spicy giant water bugs, chocolate covered locusts, bee maggot pancakes, mealworm muffins).
The results obtained showed that Italians are more willing to consume adult insects than larvae. Among the species tested, the highest mean scores were obtained for crickets, followed by locusts and bee larvae, in turn followed by flour and silkworm larvae. The least accepted species was the giant water bug.
It was interesting to note that men are on average more inclined to consume insects and less influenced by the type of species and its level of transformation than women. Given the good results obtained for crickets, we carried out a sensory test in which 52 volunteers tasted cricket flour crackers, flatbread with cricket pieces and a whole dried and toasted cricket. The results indicated that liking increased as cricket visibility decreased. This suggests that Italians may accept crickets (and other insects) as food when used as an ingredient in a food in which they cannot be recognized.
Louise Towers she is associate professor of food science and technology at the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo (Cn).
F. Tuccillo, MG Marino, L. Torri, Italian consumers’ attitudes towards entomophagyFood research international (2020)