Profiling consumers who are ready to adopt insects as a meat substitute in a Western society

Background Our daily food choices have a huge impact on the environment. Production of meat has a much larger impact compared with the production of vegetable-based proteins. In order to create a food production and supply system that is more sustainable and environmentally friendly, food consumption behaviour needs to change. A reduction of meat intake is necessary. The introduction of alternative protein sources (e.g., insects or cultured meat) might be one possibility to replace meat. Scope and approach The present systematic review identified 38 articles to answer the following three research questions: 1) Are consumers aware that meat consumption has a large environmental impact? 2) Are consumers willing to reduce meat consumption or substitute meat with an alternative? 3) Are consumers willing to accept meat substitutes and alternative proteins, such as insects or cultured meat? Key findings and conclusion Consumer awareness of the environmental impact of meat production is surprisingly low. This is true for consumers in various European countries. Likewise, willingness to change meat consumption behaviour in terms of reducing or substituting meat (e.g., by eating insects or meat substitutes) is low as well. How people can be motivated to decrease their meat consumption behaviour has been underexplored. In particular, experimental studies are lacking and further investigations should focus on strategies (e.g., nudging interventions) that might help to motivate pro-environmentally friendly meat consumption behaviour. Moreover, population-based studies are scarce, and we need more in-depth studies on the factors that increase people's willingness to reduce or to substitute meat consumption.

Consumer perception and behaviour regarding sustainable protein consumption: A systematic review

Food futurists accept that sustainability-minded humanity will increasingly incorporate insects as alternative protein. The most studied and easily reared species are not necessarily the most sustainable, acceptable, or delicious. Here, we review the literature on the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens, which is capable of efficiently converting a wide variety of organic materials, from food waste to manure, into insect biomass. They can be grown and harvested without dedicated facilities and are not pestiferous. Their larvae are 42% crude protein and 29% fat, although they are higher in saturated fats than most insects. They do not concentrate pesticides or mycotoxins. They are already grown and recommended for use as animal feed, but with regional legal restrictions on how this is done. For commercial use in human foods, larvae could potentially be milled and converted into a textured protein with a strong flavor. Their biggest advantage over other insects is their ability to convert waste into food, generating value and closing nutrient loops as they reduce pollution and costs. This general advantage is also their greatest disadvantage, for the social stigmas and legal prohibitions against eating organisms that eat waste are added to extant taboos facing insect consumption.

Review of Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) as Animal Feed and Human Food

The psychology of eating insects: A cross-cultural comparison between Germany and China

Insects as food: Exploring cultural exposure and individual experience as determinants of acceptance

Entomophagy is not well accepted in Western European populations but it is common in the world. In the future, populations from developed countries should adapt to other sources of animal proteins because traditional breeding of beef, poultry or pork will become unsustainable.

This study was performed to assess the perception of entomophagy in the Belgian population. A slight neophobia was detected but people agreed to evaluate insect preparations. Various insect formulations (mealworms and house crickets) were prepared, and insects associated with known flavors and crispy textures were preferred. After a hedonic test, people seemed to be willing to eat and cook insects in the near future.

The opportunity to introduce entomophagy in food habits of Western European populations was positively concluded. Integration of edible insects in human food is a potential solution to replace other animal protein sources in a much more sustainable development and will deserve more attention in the future.

Practical Applications
This study shows the edible insects' potential to become a usual food ingredient in Western European populations. Our results show that consumers are ready to buy and cook insects at home if they are able to associate them with familiar flavors.

Edible Insects Acceptance by Belgian Consumers: Promising Attitude for Entomophagy Development

The physicochemical properties of binary and ternary fat systems made of commercial samples of palm oil (PO) blended with anhydrous milk fat (AMF) and/or rapeseed oil (RO) were studied. Physical properties such as solid fat content by pulsed-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (p-NMR), melting profile by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and polymorphism of the blends were investigated. Palm oil was then batch enzymatically interesterified for 27 h, using Lipozyme® TL IM as biocatalyst, and further blended with AMF and/or RO in the same way. The objective of the present work was to evaluate the effect of batch enzymatic interesterification (B-EIE) of palm oil on physical characteristics of the investigated fat blends. For that purpose, iso-solid diagrams have been constructed from p-NMR data. It was shown that B-EIE of palm oil modifies its melting behaviour, but also its polymorphic stability and miscibility with other fats. Under dynamic conditions, after B-EIE, the non-ideal behaviour (eutectic) detected at low temperatures in the ternary PO/AMF/RO system disappears in the corresponding EIE-PO/AMF/RO. After static crystallization followed by a tempering, the hardness of palm oil is increased after B-EIE, as well as the hardnesses of the blends containing this fat compared to the native one. Polymorphism stability of the binary and ternary fat systems is also modified after B-EIE compared to the corresponding native systems.

Effect of Palm Oil Enzymatic Interesterification on Physicochemical and Structural Properties of Mixed Fat Blends

Different particle size sunflower tahini prototypes were obtained by controlling the milling process of roasted sunflower kernels. Not only the physicochemical properties of these samples but also of an industrial reference were compared and discussed in order to understand tahini behavior and structure. Granulometry was determined by a laser-scattering analyzer and revealed for all studied samples, trimodal particle size distributions. Histogram modes, as well as cumulative volume percentages (CVPs) of small- and middle-class populations, increased with the number of passes through colloidal mill, while for large particle size population, both the modes and CVPs decreased. Pseudoplastic behavior was observed for all sunflower tahini prototypes and reference, irrespective of studied temperature and particle size. However, the value of consistency coefficient ranged from 3,049 to 6.6 Pa·sn being strong dependent on particle size and temperature while flow behavior indexes between 0.53 and 0.87. Time-dependent rheological analysis revealed higher thixotropic degree of coarser sunflower tahini samples. Studied samples had rheological properties characteristic for a viscoelastic material, the response in the dynamic frequency sweep being typical for weak gels. The finest sunflower tahini prototype showed the lowest Krieger–Dougherty estimated volume fraction (0.48), while the coarsest sample the highest (0.69), sunflower tahini reference being placed in a median position with a volume fraction of 0.56. By combining all those data, a schematic structure of sunflower tahini was proposed for the first time.



Practical Applications

In the production of tahini in Eastern Europe, sesame seeds have been totally replaced by sunflower seeds due to the high availability of sunflower in this region and the comparable taste of the final product. The fundamental understanding of structure and rheology is an essential step in analyzing tahini behavior during processing and storage or when included in new food formulations. The tahini model structure proposed for the first time in this manuscript is an essential tool for food engineers when improving the stability and texture of tahini or related products (e.g., halva, hummus) as well as when designing new tahini formulations. The obtained results will contribute to quality improvements of tahini-derived products as well as to a superior valorization of sunflower kernels by replacing sesame seeds in tahini production, being of interest also for similar products such as sesame tahini, peanut butter or hazelnut paste.

The Influence of Particle Size Distribution on Sunflower Tahini Rheology and Structure

Interactions of lipases with milk fat globule membrane monolayers using a Langmuir film balance

The present invention relates to an oil-in-water emulsion for whipped cream and to a whipped cream obtained by whipping the emulsion. In particular, the present invention relates to a stabilized whippable oil-in-water emulsion upon increasing the trilaurin triglyceride content of its oily phase, and to the stabilized cream obtained by whipping the emulsion. The present invention further relates to the methods for obtaining this emulsion and this cream, and to the uses of an oil-in-water emulsion according to the invention or of the stabilized cream according to the invention.

Christophe Blecker

Papers

Edible Insects Acceptance by Belgian Consumers: Promising Attitude for Entomophagy Development

Effect of Palm Oil Enzymatic Interesterification on Physicochemical and Structural Properties of Mixed Fat Blends

The Influence of Particle Size Distribution on Sunflower Tahini Rheology and Structure

Interactions of lipases with milk fat globule membrane monolayers using a Langmuir film balance

An emulsion whippable at room-temperature