Edible insects as feed ingredient, Nutritional and environmental aspects - Food safety and legal requirements

Abstract

Edible insects are becoming a key to solve the world’s food and feed security responding to an increasingly growing world’s population. Despite their nutritional value that is comparable to that of conventional meats and fish, insects have never been recognized as food or feed in developed countries. In fact, insect consumption has been a worldwide food habit, dated back to pre-history and is still practiced in many countries, even where food security is not a major concern. Moreover, insects are parts of the natural diet in conventional livestock, especially aquaculture and poultry species To start with FAO/WU’s paper (2013) on edible insects as a new food and feed ingredient, many researchers and associations have high-lightened in their publications that insects can be reared sustainably and more ecologically compared to other livestock.