Background: Addressing the environmental impact necessitates a dietary shift towards more sustainable daily food choices, specifically reducing meat intake. Edible insects are a compelling alternative, providing a protein-rich source that holds potential to replace conventional meats.
The shift involves more than just matching nutritional content. Meat consumption is deeply rooted in cultural norms, traditions, and individual identities, leading to resistance against its reduction or substitution. Challenges arise from psychosocial barriers, including meat attachment, disgust, and neophobia. Despite insects offering resource efficiency and nutrition – which varies with species, life stages, and rearing conditions – their integration into Western diets remains tentative. To harness the environmental and nutritional advantages of edible insects, their integration into regular meals is imperative, transcending their current status as occasional novelties. This requires strategies like targeting family meals and younger audiences. A nuanced approach, considering cultural and psychological factors, is vital to gauge the actual substitutive potential of insect-based foods, ensuring they meet and align with consumer expectations.
Objectives: The main objective of this thesis is to assess the potential of edible insects as meat replacements in the daily Danish diet. The first specific objective was to investigate the effects of exposing school children to educational and tasting interventions on the perception of edible insects and insect-based foods using online and in-person classrooms. The second specific objective was to investigate the impact of exposing families to insect-based or plant-based dinner menus on dietary pattern, meat intake, and protein intake over a six-week intervention period.
Methods: Paper I consisted of two sub-studies. The online classroom used a simple intervention design where the perception of two insect-based were measured after exposure to the information session and tasting among 220 schoolchildren aged 12-15 years. Online sessions (OS) 1 and 2 were conducted with cricket-based flatbread. OS3 incorporated a cooking and tasting session of a dhal-style dish using a cricket spice mix. The in-person classroom intervention (IPI) was a single-arm pre-post study design composed of a lesson, food tasting, and a question-and-answer session with designated questionnaires to 65 eighth grade children. The tasting offered buffaloworm falafel. Paper II describes the protocol of the main dietary intervention. Paper III was a two-arm randomized equivalence intervention trial. The participants consisted of families: one adult and one 8–10 year-old child. The families were provided products incorporating either insect-based or plant-based protein suited to replace meat in 3 weekly dinner meals for 6 weeks. The six insect-based products in the experimental menu were developed by SUSINCHAIN project partners. The plant-based menu featured market-available products that closely matched the insect-based items in presentation and nutritional composition. The portions were estimated to replace, on average, 20% of the weekly meat protein intake for one adult and one child.
Participants filled out questionnaires on food neophobia, disgust, disgust towards insects, exposure to edible insects, meat attachment (adults only), and food acceptability and feedback. Dietary assessments were conducted using 4-day dietary registrations at baseline and endline, as well as daily food records.
Results: In Paper I, of the 220 responses from OS1-3, 96% of children completed the OS1 questionnaire, 76% completed OS2, and 45% completed OS3. From the in-person interventions, 65 responses were collected. Notably, as tasks increased in the online sessions, the response rate fell. After the in-person classroom session, children saw positive correlations between the societal need for sustainable foods and their own willingness to eat insects. The post-intervention data suggested that both the educational lesson and tasting sessions effectively conveyed the option of edible insects as a sustainable protein source. The insect-based products we presented received largely positive reviews. In Paper III, 80 families (80 adults and 80 children) enrolled, of which 65 completed the intervention. Although the intervention aimed for a 20% meat replacement, the results were modest. Neither the adults nor the children achieved the 20% target replacement. Adults in the insect-based menu reduced meat consumption by an average of 5.5%, while children achieved a 2.3% reduction. Conversely, the plant-based menu reduced meat consumption by an average of 9.0% for adults and 4.3% for children. Meat attachment was the only psychosocial factor that had a statistically significant impact on daily meat protein intake.
While the frequency of meat meals decreased, portion sizes did not change. Notably, participants following the insect-based menu exhibited a higher dropout rate.
Discussion and Conclusion: The effectiveness of classroom interventions in promoting edible insects was evidenced by post-intervention data. This data demonstrated increased positive correlations between recognizing the importance of sustainable foods and a willingness to eat insects. Children possess prior knowledge of sustainability issues, but this does not necessarily translate to viewing insects as a sustainable choice, especially with the interference from food neophobia and disgust. Educational interventions can aid in bridging this disconnect and positive influence acceptability towards edible insects and lessen feelings of disgust toward insect consumption.
Incorporating edible insects into a regular dinner meals pose more challenges than occasional consumption. In the dietary intervention, a slight reduction in meat consumption among participants indicated the potential for insect-based diets to be introduced into the daily diet, but also emphasized that obstacles that still exist. Improving the sensory characteristics of alternative proteins could increase their acceptance across age groups. Introducing insect-based proteins in two dinner meals per week can be a starting point to decrease meat protein intake. Setting a 20% weekly meat replacement target with insect protein posed an ambitious challenge for food innovators. Meat replacement targets can be modified to better fit future interventions.
Psychosocial factors, notably meat attachment, play a pivotal role in the acceptance of edible insects. Children's dietary patterns during the intervention paralleled those of adults, suggesting a shared adaptability. However, further research is needed since children are exposed to different environments, such as schools, and tend to become less reliant on their parent’s food choices. As familiarity with edible insects grows, along with increasing knowledge of sustainability and improvements in meat substitutes, research methodologies should be adapted accordingly.
The successful integration of edible insects into Western diets depends on multiple factors: product presentation, taste, and previous consumer experiences. Using familiar dishes that incorporate insects can capture children's interest, aligning with the preference for 'invisible' insect ingredients. Factors such as taste, texture, and familiarity dictate the reception of insectbased and other alternative proteins. Emphasizing the benefits and refining sensory characteristics can help in the mainstream acceptance of edible insects.
The pathway to sustainable diet shifts depends on both refining insect-based food quality and understanding consumer behavior. Achieving this shift requires a multifaceted approach considering the existing dietary habits of adults and children, psychosocial barriers, particularly meat attachment, and the reception to novel and nutritious protein sources.