Traditional Knowledge of the Utilization of Edible Insects in Nagaland, North-East India.

Lobeno Mozhui,L.N. Kakati,Patricia Kiewhuo,Sapu Changkija

doi:10.3390/foods9070852

Abstract

Located at the north-eastern part of India, Nagaland is a relatively unexplored area having had only few studies on the faunal diversity, especially concerning insects. Although the practice of entomophagy is widespread in the region, a detailed account regarding the utilization of edible insects is still lacking. The present study documents the existing knowledge of entomophagy in the region, emphasizing the currently most consumed insects in view of their marketing potential as possible future food items. Assessment was done with the help of semi-structured questionnaires, which mentioned a total of 106 insect species representing 32 families and 9 orders that were considered as health foods by the local ethnic groups. While most of the edible insects are consumed boiled, cooked, fried, roasted/toasted, some insects such as Cossus sp., larvae and pupae of ants, bees, wasps, and hornets as well as honey, bee comb, bee wax are consumed raw. Certain edible insects are either fully domesticated (e.g., Antheraea assamensis, Apis cerana indica, and Samia cynthia ricini) or semi-domesticated in their natural habitat (e.g., Vespa mandarinia, Vespa soror, Vespa tropica tropica, and Vespula orbata), and the potential of commercialization of these insects and some other species as a bio-resource in Nagaland exists.

Highlights

The world population is estimated to reach 9.8 billion by 2050 with a globally expected increase of76% in the demand for animal protein [1]
The present study contains an inventory of 106 insect species including 82 edible insect species recorded in our earlier work [23] that are regarded as health foods by the ethnic groups in Nagaland (Table 2)
For the different ethnic groups in Nagaland, edible insects are a natural, renewable resource minimizing theimportant moisture content of the insect to reduce the rate of deterioration

Summary

Introduction

The world population is estimated to reach 9.8 billion by 2050 with a globally expected increase of76% in the demand for animal protein [1]. Livestock production worldwide accounts for 70% of the agricultural land and, with the growing demand for meat and the declining availability of agricultural land, there is an urgent need to find additional or alternative sources of protein to provide for the increasing global population. The workshop in Chiang Mai (Thailand) in 2008 on “Forest insects as food: humans bite back” [4] emphasized edible insects as a natural food resource. To combat future food insecurity and to develop insects for food and feed, as first suggested by Meyer-Rochow [5], is considered a viable strategy [6,7]. Entomophagy is advocated as a source to combat future food insecurity mainly because of the insects’ abundance, high nutrient composition, high feed conversion efficiency, digestibility, and ease with which they can be bred [6,7,12–14].

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