Feeding humans with edible insects : actual state and perspectives in Belgium and Europe

In future decades, world population will grow up to 9 billion of people and we will be confronted to a lack of nutritive resources. We will not continue to produce proteins with our conventional livestock as beef, poultry or pig. It will therefore look to other sources and edible insects are one of these solutions.
Indeed, more than 2000 species of edible insects were actually consumed by 3000 ethnic groups in the world. In undernourished populations, entomophagy is essential to relieve deficiencies in proteins, fatty acids and some vitamins. In Europe, we have acquired sedentary habits and we have lost our ancestral harvesting and hunting traditions. It is the reason of disinterest for edible insects and entomophagy was considered as a "barbarian" food habit.
Facing food challenges of tomorrow, it is important to sensitize industrialized populations and to reintroduce edible insects in our plates and habits. The first step is to overcome neophobia of food products. Our studies focused on different insect preparations and on perception of entomophagy by different age classes. Globally, our first results indicated that entomophagy was accepted by belgian consumers but the more difficult for them is to taste the first time.
These results confirmed neophobia for this type of food products and thus the importance of positive informations and education for acceptance of entomophagy.