Entomophagy Wiki

Juvenile female Madagascar hissing cockroach

This wiki is about entomophagy (bug-eating). More specifically, it hopes to make up for the lack of information available to budding entomophagists by providing a list of species that are edible, including preparation techniques, farming techniques, and information about their natural habits and habitat. I've started this wiki because I've been unable to find information on eating and raising insects, so I hope that experts and pioneers in the field can help fill in the gaps. Please contribute anything you can!

Entomophagy

Entomophagy (from Greek ἔντομος éntomos, "insect(ed)", and φᾰγεῖν phăgein, "to eat") is the consumption of insects as food. Insects are eaten by many animals, but the term is generally used to refer to human consumption of insects; animals that eat insects are known as insectivores. There are also some species of carnivorous plants that derive nutrients from insects.

Human insect-eating is common in cultures in parts of the world, such as North, Central and South America; and Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Over 1,000 insects are known to be eaten in 80% of the world's nations. However, in some societies insect-eating is uncommon or even taboo. Today insect eating is rare in the developed world, but insects remain a popular food in many developing regions of Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Some of the more popular insects and arachnids eaten around the world include crickets, cicadas, grasshoppers, ants, various beetle grubs (such as mealworms), the larvae of the darkling beetle or rhinoceros beetle, various species of caterpillar (such as bamboo worms, mopani worms, silkworms and waxworms), scorpions and tarantulas. Entomophagy is sometimes defined broadly to include the practice of eating arthropods that are not insects, such as arachnids (tarantulas mainly) and myriapods (centipedes mainly). There are 1,417 known species of arthropods, including arachnids, that are edible to humans. The term is not used for the consumption of other arthropods, specifically crustaceans like crabs, lobsters and shrimps.