Insects as human food

Entomophagy is the human use of insects as food.

The eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults of certain insects have been eaten by humans from prehistoric times to the present day.A lot of  people in Thailand enjoy eating insects as a snack food, often enjoyed with beer. They’re usually fried in a wok, and seasoned with Golden Mountainsauce & a bit of Thai pepper powder.

If you don’t find street vendors selling fried insects, for sure you can always find them at Temple Fairs throughout Thailand.

Temple Fairs help raise money for the temple, and sometimes last a whole week whereby all kinds of food & clothing is sold, along with traditional entertainment. -Justplay 

Human insect-eating is common to cultures in most parts of the world, including North, Central, and South America; and Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Over 1,000 species of insects are known to be eaten in 80% of the world’s nations.

The total number of ethnic groups recorded to practice entomophagy is around 3,000.

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 regions of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

Some companies are trying to introduce insects into Western diets.

FAO has registered some 1900 edible insect species and estimates there were in 2005 some 2 billion insect consumers worldwide.
They also suggest entomophagy should be considered as a solution to environmental pollution.

Before humans had tools to hunt or farm, insects may have represented an important part of their diet.

Evidence has been found analyzing coprolites from caves in the US and Mexico.

Coprolites in caves in the Ozark Mountains were found to contain ants, beetle larvae, lice, ticks, and mites.
Evidence suggests that evolutionary precursors of Homo sapiens were also entomophagous.

Insectivory also features to various degrees amongst extant primates, such as marmosets and tamarins,

and some researchers suggest that the earliest primates were nocturnal, arboreal insectivores.
Similarly, most extant apes are insectivorous to some degree.

Cave paintings in Altamira, north Spain, dated from about 30,000 to 9,000 BC,

depict the collection of edible insects and wild bee nests, suggesting a possibly entomophagous society.
Cocoons of wild silkworm (Theophilia religiosae) were found in ruins in the Shanxi province of China, from 2,000 to 2,500 years BC.

The cocoons were discovered with large holes, suggesting the pupae were eaten.
Many ancient entomophagy practices have changed little over time compared with other agricultural practices, leading to the development of modern traditional entomophagy.

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