Insects as a legitimate food ingredient

Abstract

The very idea of eating insects is the greatest booster of the revulsion feeling towards entomophagy. An inappropriate cultural categorisation of this eating habit has been cultivated by Western societies. The various approaches on promoting invertebrates as a legitimate food habit have been misapplied. Educational efforts have been made unsuccessfully. To address cognitive aversion toward insects, a complete change in the strategic plan must be established. This qualitative explanatory research aims at a full theoretical, and methodologically sustained, understanding of the psychological and cultural drivers that lead to the negative assumptions of the population. The demystification of prejudices and imaginations by promoting normalcy of entomophagy it will stamp the harmful and incoherent disgust image out of the Westerners’ psyche. This study underpins the psycho-cultural strategies along with gastronomic science that must be carried out when this product is introduced in a market where the insect is a culturally unacceptable food.

Date of Award	15 Mar 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Marisol Rodrigues Goia (Supervisor)