insect | Rural Sociology Wageningen University

Join RUW at the ‘(Un)accepted Foods’ evening and learn more about the potential of insects as food and about eating unconventional food products like horse and goose meat. Find out why responses to such food items can be so strong and how attitudes towards them differ across cultures. And how about challenging your own food habits at the tasting?

Contributions by:

Jessica Duncan: Lecturer in Food Cultures and Food Policy at Rural Sociology Group of Wageningen University
Arnold van Huis: Author of ‘The insect cookbook’, researcher at the Entomology department (WUR)
Rob Hagenouw: Keuken van het Ongewenst Dier (Kitchen of the Unwanted Animal)

Venue: April 8, 19.00-21.00 in the public libary of Wageningen (BBLTHK), free entrance.

For more information see: www.stichtingruw.nl or the Facebook page (Un)accepted food.

Just like last year, the first week of the course Food Culture and Customs deals with what a food taboo is and discusses theories on how a food taboo comes into existence. These theories inform an assignment where students question people for their opinion on insects as food. Clearly, insects are a food taboo in Western countries, no? Well, maybe reality is by-passing me soon. And I might have to look for other examples soon. There were quite a few insect-should-be-food seminars during the past year. It fits so well with the current Malthusian fear on an exploding world population which supposedly can’t be fed. For this, new solutions are sought. In the direction of so-called ‘sustainable intensification’ for example. Or in alternative protein sources, such as those from insects. Continue reading →