Legal situation and consumer acceptance of insects being eaten as human food in different nations across the world-A comprehensive review.

Insect consumption is a traditional practice in many countries. Currently, the urgent need for ensuring food sustainability and the high pressure from degrading environment are urging food scientists to rethink the possibility of introducing edible insects as a promising food type. However, due to the lack of the standardized legislative rules and the adequate scientific data that demonstrate the safety of edible insects, many countries still consider it a grey area to introduce edible insects into food supply chains. In this review, we comprehensively reviewed the legal situation, consumer willingness, acceptance, and the knowledge on edible insect harvesting, processing as well as their safety concerns. We found that, despite the great advantage of introducing edible insects in food supply chains, the legal situation and consumer acceptance for edible insects are still unsatisfactory and vary considerably in different countries, which mostly depend on geographical locations and cultural backgrounds involving psychological, social, religious, and anthropological factors. Besides, the safety concern of edible insect consumption is still a major issue hurdling the promotion of edible insects, which is particularly concerning for countries with no practice in consuming insects. Fortunately, the situation is improving. So far, some commercial insect products like energy bars, burgers, and snack foods have emerged in the market. Furthermore, the European Union has also recently issued a specific item for regulating new foods, which is believed to establish an authorized procedure to promote insect-based foods and should be an important step for marketizing edible insects in the near future.

Termites as human foods-A comprehensive review.

Global food production is anticipated to rise along with the growth of the global population. As a result, creative solutions must be devised to ensure that everyone has access to nutritious, affordable, and safe food. Consequently, including insects in diets has the potential to improve global food and nutrition security. This paper aims to share recent findings by covering edible termites as the main aspect, from their consumption record until consumer acceptance. A total of 53 termite species are reported as edible ones and distributed in 6 biogeographic realms. Generally, termites have a nutrient composition that is suitable for human consumption, and cooked termites are a better dietary choice than their raw counterparts. Besides, increasing customer interest in eating termite-based food can be achieved by making it more palatable and tastier through various cooking processes, that is, boiling, frying, grilling, roasting, smoking, and sun-drying. Moreover, edible termites can also be used as a new source of medication by exhibiting antimicrobial activity. Regarding their advantages, it is strongly encouraged to implement a seminatural rearing system to sustain the supply of edible termites. Overall, this paper makes it evident that termites are an important natural resource for food or medicine. Hence, the long-term objective is to stimulate scientific inquiry into the potential of edible insects as an answer to the problem of global food security.

Effects of undesired substances and their bioaccumulation on the black soldier fly larvae, Hermetia illucens (Diptera: Stratiomyidae)-a literature review.

Black soldier fly (BSF), Hermetia illucens (L.) (Diptera: Stratiomyidae), is predominantly reared on organic wastes and other unused complementary substrates. However, BSF may have a buildup of undesired substances in their body. The contamination of undesired substance, e.g., heavy metals, mycotoxins, and pesticides, in BSF mainly occurred during the feeding process in the larval stage. Yet, the pattern of accumulated contaminants in the bodies of BSF larvae (BSFL) is varied distinctively depending on the diets as well as the contaminant types and concentrations. Heavy metals, including cadmium, copper, arsenic, and lead, were reported to have accumulated in BSFL. In most cases, the cadmium, arsenic, and lead concentration in BSFL exceeded the recommended standard for heavy metals occurring in feed and food. Following the results concerning the accumulation of the undesired substance in BSFL's body, they did not affect the biological parameters of BSFL, unless the amounts of heavy metals in their diets are highly exceeding their thresholds. Meanwhile, a study on the fate of pesticides and mycotoxins in BSFL indicates that no bioaccumulation was detected for any of the target substances. In addition, dioxins, PCBs, PAHs, and pharmaceuticals did not accumulate in BSFL in the few existing studies. However, future studies are needed to assess the long-term effects of the aforementioned undesired substances on the demographic traits of BSF and to develop appropriate waste management technology. Since the end products of BSFL that are contaminated pose a threat to both human and animal health, their nutrition and production process must be well managed to create end products with a low contamination level to achieve a closed food cycle of BSF as animal feed.

Unravelling the potential of insects for medicinal purposes - A comprehensive review.

Entomotherapy, the use of insects for medicinal purposes, has been practised for centuries in many countries around the world. More than 2100 edible insect species are eaten by humans, but little is known about the possibility of using these insects as a promising alternative to traditional pharmaceuticals for treating diseases. This review offers a fundamental understanding of the therapeutic applications of insects and how they might be used in medicine. In this review, 235 insect species from 15 orders are reported to be used as medicine. Hymenoptera contains the largest medicinal insect species, followed by Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Lepidoptera, and Blattodea. Scientists have examined and validated the potential uses of insects along with their products and by-products in treating various diseases, and records show that they are primarily used to treat digestive and skin disorders. Insects are known to be rich sources of bioactive compounds, explaining their therapeutic features such as anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antiviral, and so on. Challenges associated with the consumption of insects (entomophagy) and their therapeutic uses include regulation barriers and consumer acceptance. Moreover, the overexploitation of medicinal insects in their natural habitat has led to a population crisis, thus necessitating the investigation and development of their mass-rearing procedure. Lastly, this review suggests potential directions for developing insects used in medicine and offers advice for scientists interested in entomotherapy. In future, entomotherapy may become a sustainable and cost-effective solution for treating various ailments and has the potential to revolutionize modern medicine.

Consumer behavior towards cultured meat: A review since 2014.

Cultured meat, also known as 'in-vitro meat' or 'clean meat', holds the potential solution to environmental sustainability along with conventional meat alternatives, including plant-based meat, insects, algae, and pulses. A critical step to its widescale acceptance is consumer perception. Both qualitative research and quantitative analysis are being carried out to enhance the acceptability of cultured meat. In this review, consumer behavior towards cultured meat is accessed to understand the current market scenario. Psychological factors that can hinder or improve cultured meat acceptance are discussed. Consumer social factors geared towards consumer behavior on cultured meat are also summarized. As per the research findings, meat lovers are more likely to try cultured meat owing to the attached sustainability claims. The consumers' concerns about the unnaturalness of cultured meat should be addressed in order to encourage them to get more acquainted with the product and modify their attitudes about it. Marketing tactics of labeling it as 'clean meat' rendered better purchasing as compared to other terms. Furthermore, educating the masses likely reduced the unfamiliarity with newly marketed products resulting in improved consumer perception of cultured meat.