It dawned on me today as I was revisiting a post I wrote for the Anthropology and Environment Society in Anthropology News that I never shared it here. I then saw that it came out in the April issue.. April of last year seems like a blur. I was negotiating my current position here at Wayne State University, presenting at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and discussing the due date of my current book project with my editor from University Press of Florida. Each of these other things have had some mention on this blog, but the Anthropology News piece came and went without a word.
I took the Anthropology News piece as a chance to call anthropologists to action. There have been major leaps and bounds in the promotion of insect-based foods ever since the United Nations came out in support of the resource as both food and feed, but it is no easy road. Whether we are thinking about insects as something to eat here in the United States or something that is being pushed as aid in developing countries, the truth is we are redefining "food" for someone, and that comes with many layers of cultural implications. If this resource is going to actually become commonplace, a nuanced understanding of how a culture might adopt it into their cuisine is necessary, and that is exactly what anthropologists can help us learn. I concluded in my post:
I took the Anthropology News piece as a chance to call anthropologists to action. There have been major leaps and bounds in the promotion of insect-based foods ever since the United Nations came out in support of the resource as both food and feed, but it is no easy road. Whether we are thinking about insects as something to eat here in the United States or something that is being pushed as aid in developing countries, the truth is we are redefining "food" for someone, and that comes with many layers of cultural implications. If this resource is going to actually become commonplace, a nuanced understanding of how a culture might adopt it into their cuisine is necessary, and that is exactly what anthropologists can help us learn. I concluded in my post:
"Anthropology can provide the framework necessary for figuring out how insect ingredients can be incorporated into different dishes that people might enjoy, both here in the United States and across the world. Anthropologists understand that culture is important in food choice, and this is a key perspective that the entomophagy movement needs in order to be successful."
To read the entire piece, please click here to visit the post at the Anthropology News website or click below to download the pdf.
| entomophagy_anthropology___anthropology-news.pdf |
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