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Insects as food or edible insects are insect species used for human consumption. [1] Over 2 billion people are estimated to eat insects on a daily basis. [ 2 ] Globally, more than 2,000 insect species are considered edible, though far fewer are discussed for industrialized mass production and regionally authorized for use in food.
As with other livestock animals, a variety of welfare concerns can manifest during the rearing and slaughter of insects. The 5 Domains framework can be used to broadly categorize these areas of possible concern into four functional domains (nutrition, environment, behavior, and physical health) which then influence the mental domain of the animal's welfare state. [17]
Developing edible insects as a source of food when other forms of protein such as poultry and bovine are less available and less sustainable has been explored. Insects explored for food and feed include crickets, grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, dragonflies, scale insects, flies, and more.
Insects as feed are insect species used as animal feed, either for livestock, including aquaculture, or as pet food. As livestock feed production uses ~33% of the world's agricultural cropland use, insects might be able to supplement livestock feed. They can transform low-value organic wastes, are nutritious and have low environmental impacts.
Insects form an important part of the food chain, especially for entomophagous vertebrates such as many mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. Insects play a critical role in maintaining community structure and composition; in the case of animals through diseases transmission, predation and parasitism , and in plants through phytophagy and ...
The Diptera are a very significant group in the decomposition and degeneration of plant and animal matter, are instrumental in the breakdown and release of nutrients back into the soil, and whose larvae supplement the diet of higher agrarian organisms. They are also an important component in food chains.
The "Spanish fly", Lytta vesicatoria, has been considered to have medicinal, aphrodisiac, and other properties. Human interactions with insects include both a wide variety of uses, whether practical such as for food, textiles, and dyestuffs, or symbolic, as in art, music, and literature, and negative interactions including damage to crops and extensive efforts to control insect pests.
Insect farming is the practice of raising and breeding insects as livestock, also referred to as minilivestock or micro stock. Insects may be farmed for the commodities they produce (like silk , honey , lac or insect tea ), or for them themselves; to be used as food , as feed , as a dye, and otherwise.