Dataset Information

Insect Food Products in the Western World: Assessing the Potential of a New 'Green' Market.

ABSTRACT: Although two billion people already eat insects in the world and the benefits of edible insects are well known, these 'green' sources of protein are neither treated as conventional food products nor widely incorporated into Western diets. Using a school-based investigation surveying 161 children, aged 6-15, and 114 of their parents in London, and an online consumer survey with mainly British and French consumers (N = 1,020), this research provides insights into the potential of the insect market in the West. This work supports the idea that incorporating insect food into our diets makes not only environmental but also business sense. A nonnegligible segment of the population surveyed is willing to pay for mealworm minced meat and young children and pre-teens could represent a substantial market segment, as yet unexplored. This analysis points to multiple marketing strategies, such as early exposure, education, reducing the visibility of insect parts, celebrity endorsement, or peer-to-peer marketing, all of which could facilitate the adoption of insect food in the 'mainstream' arena, according to the consumer segment being targeted. Generalizations from these results are restricted to an educated and youthful subset of the potential consumer pool and further work remains to understand the patterns of Western consumer acceptance for the range of insect foods.

SUBMITTER: Collins CM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6847481 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Insect Food Products in the Western World: Assessing the Potential of a New 'Green' Market.

Collins C Matilda CM Vaskou Pauline P Kountouris Yiannis Y

Annals of the Entomological Society of America 20190911 6

Although two billion people already eat insects in the world and the benefits of edible insects are well known, these 'green' sources of protein are neither treated as conventional food products nor widely incorporated into Western diets. Using a school-based investigation surveying 161 children, aged 6-15, and 114 of their parents in London, and an online consumer survey with mainly British and French consumers (<i>N</i> = 1,020), this research provides insights into the potential of the insect ...[more]

PMID: 31741488

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Project description:BackgroundMore than 330 food additives (e.g. artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, dyes) are authorized in Europe, with a great variability of use across food products.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to investigate the distribution and co-occurrence of food additives in a large-scale database of foods and beverages available on the French market.DesignThe open access crowdsourced Open Food Facts database (https://world.openfoodfacts.org/) was used to retrieve the composition of food and beverage products commonly marketed on the French market (n = 126,556), based on the ingredients list. Clustering of food additive variables was used in order to determine groups of additives frequently co-occurring in food products. The clusters were confirmed by network analysis, using the eLasso method.ResultsFifty-three-point eight percent of food products contained at least 1 food additive and 11.3% at least 5. Food categories most likely to contain food additives (in more than 85% of food items) were artificially sweetened beverages, ice creams, industrial sandwiches, biscuits and cakes. The most frequently used food additives were citric acid, lecithins and modified starches (>10,000 products each). Some food additives with suspected health effects also pertained to the top 50: sodium nitrite, potassium nitrate, carrageenan, monosodium glutamate, sulfite ammonia caramel, acesulfame K, sucralose, (di/tri/poly) phosphates, mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, potassium sorbate, cochineal, potassium metabisulphite, sodium alginate, and bixin (>800 food products each). We identified 6 clusters of food additives frequently co-occurring in food products.ConclusionsFood additives are widespread in industrial French products and some clusters of additives frequently co-occurring in food products were identified. These results pave the way to future etiological studies merging composition data to food consumption data to investigate their association with chronic disease risk, in particular potential 'cocktail effects'.

Project description:Climate change has the potential to enhance or disrupt biological systems, but currently, little is known about how organism plasticity may facilitate adaptation to localised climate variation. The bee-flower relationship is an exemplar signal-receiver system that may provide important insights into the complexity of ecological interactions in situations like this. For example, several studies on bee temperature preferences show that bees prefer to collect warm nectar from flowers at low ambient temperatures, but switch their preferences to cooler flowers at ambient temperatures above about 30° C. We used temperature sensor thermal probes to measure the temperature of outdoor flowers of 30 plant species in the Southern regions of the Australian mainland, to understand how different species could modulate petal temperature in response to changes in ambient temperature and, potentially, influence the decision-making of bees in the flowering plant's favour. We found that flower petal temperatures respond in different ways to changing ambient temperature: linearly increasing or decreasing relative to the ambient temperature, dynamically changing in a non-linear manner, or varying their temperature along with the ambient conditions. For example, our investigation of the difference between ambient temperature and petal temperature (?T), and ambient temperature, revealed a non-linear relationship for Erysimum linifolium and Polygala grandiflora that seems suited to bee temperature preferences. The temperature profiles of species like Hibertia vestita and H. obtusifolia appear to indicate that they do not have a cooling mechanism. These species may therefore be less attractive to bee pollinators in changing climatic conditions with ambient temperatures increasingly above 30° C. This may be to the species' detriment when insect-pollinator mediated selection is considered. However, we found no evidence that flower visual characteristics used by bees to identify flowers at close range, such as colour or shape, were straightforward modulators of floral temperature. We could not identify any clear link to phylogenetic history and temperature modulation either. Mapping our test flower distribution on the Australian continent however, indicates a potential clustering that suggests different flower responses may constitute adaptations to local conditions. Our study proposes a framework for modelling the potential effects of climate change and floral temperature on flower pollination dynamics at local and global scales.

Dataset Information

Insect Food Products in the Western World: Assessing the Potential of a New 'Green' Market.

Publications

Insect Food Products in the Western World: Assessing the Potential of a New 'Green' Market.

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