We must decolonise the science and industry of insects as food and feed

Colonialism has played a major role in the history of insects as food and feed. Early descriptions of insect foods written by people from colonial powers – among them Linnaeus, founder of modern taxonomy, who noted the deliciousness of Rhynchophorus phoenicis larvae (Linnaeus, 1771, quoted in Bodenheimer, 1951) – are positive. However, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, colonial policy towards food was to reject it or to transform it using European cooking methods (Singley, 2012), and negative depictions of insect foods are common and often presented with racist undertones (for examples see Bergier, 1941). The apprehension and disgust that many Western and non-Western consumers express towards insects as food (House, 2016; Vanhonacker et al., 2013; Verbeke, 2015) are rooted in this colonial legacy (Defoliart, 1999; Yen, 2009). © 2021 Wageningen Academic Publishers