Enliven: Journal of Dietetics Research and Nutrition

The Third Nutritional Transition and Toward an Equitable Feeding with Entomophagy
Author(s): Mehmet Faik Cem Turaman

Entomophagy defines the consumption of insect as food by humans. Insecta is one of the most widespread group of animals on the planet and is the most diverse group in terms of species. There is evidence that human, throughout its history has consumed insects as food. Insect consumption is still common all over the world yet insufficient. In the course of evolution, the human might have diverged from other apes by shifting it’s way of nutrition and then, there has been two transitions in it’s nutritional attitudes: The first one corresponds to the agricultural revolution and the second, to the Anthropocene. This manuscript advocates the necessity of the third nutritional transition through entomophagy. With the beginning of the second nutritional transition, human has faced a health bottleneck stemming from the overconsumption of food. The most cost-effective way to overcome this obstacle is facilitating and/or achieving the third nutritional transition by eating insects. Through entomophagy not only our protein gap will be closed but the metabolic syndrome and cancer pandemics will also be prevented in a cheaper and painless manner. Insect breeding will save our species from the ecological deadlock of the environment. Entomophagy is by no means a matter of choice but a necessity.