Why is eating insects an ancient and nutritionally sound practice?

Edible insects provide complete proteins, unsaturated fats, iron, and zinc in amounts comparable to meat, with a far smaller environmental footprint. Two billion people regularly eat them across more than 110 countries. In times of famine, locusts have historically been a providential resource, abundant and easy to harvest, turning an invasion into a pantry.

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Entomophagy: Eating Insects

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During the village festival, Maomao accepts without the slightest hesitation the round of grilled insects the villagers offer: crickets, frogs, everything goes. A villager’s remark, “this time of year they’re nice and fat,” betrays practical knowledge of insect seasonality. Facing her, Jinshi shows the typical disgust of a city dweller unused to it. The scene frames entomophagy not as a quaint curiosity, but as an ordinary dietary act within a rural community.

The subject in depth

Entomophagy refers to the human consumption of insects ^[Wikipedia]. It concerns roughly two billion people today across more than one hundred ten countries, and draws on a broad base of species: beetles, caterpillars, orthopterans (locusts, grasshoppers, crickets), hymenopterans (ants, bees, wasps), termites, and many others.

Grilled locusts compared with beef for protein content and feed ratio, illustrating entomophagy worldwide — Entomophagy: locust versus beef

Nutritionally, edible insects offer advantages comparable to conventional meat. Their protein content ranges from 40 to 75% of dry weight depending on species and developmental stage

^[Wikipedia]. These proteins are complete, meaning they contain the full set of essential amino acids. The fats present are largely unsaturated, close to those found in fish. Insects also provide heme iron, zinc, calcium, and B vitamins. Weight for weight, a grilled locust rivals a cut of beef on nearly every one of these measures.

The comment about the time of year is not incidental. Most edible insects are indeed seasonal: their fat content peaks before winter diapause or before their reproductive molt, making them more calorie-dense in autumn. Eating them “nice and fat” reflects precise empirical knowledge, passed down from generation to generation.

Ecologically, farming or harvesting insects requires far fewer resources than raising livestock. To produce a kilogram of protein, a cricket consumes roughly twelve times less feed than a cow, emits a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gases, and requires negligible land area. Its water footprint is also much lower.

In real life

Insect consumption is documented in many culinary traditions around the world. In Southeast Asia, grilled beetle larvae and seasoned crickets are sold in street markets in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. In Mexico, chapulines (grilled grasshoppers) have been an ingredient of Oaxacan cuisine since pre-Columbian times. In sub-Saharan Africa, Gonimbrasia belina (mopane) caterpillars are a major protein source for tens of millions of people in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and South Africa. In Japan, hachinoko (bee larvae) and inago (rice-field grasshoppers) feature in the traditional cuisine of certain rural regions.

Locusts hold a special place in the history of human food: during locust invasions, which devastate crops, many populations have historically turned the plague into a resource, harvesting and preserving the insects by drying, smoking, or fermenting. This logic of turning hardship into nutritional opportunity remains documented in West Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

The fact-checker's eye

The scene is accurate in its context. Maomao’s gesture, eating crickets without batting an eye, is culturally consistent within a medieval rural Asian setting where entomophagy is an ordinary practice. The remark about insects being “nice and fat” this time of year reflects an accurate biological reality: insect fat content does indeed vary with life cycle and season.

One point deserves nuance: the series doesn’t distinguish locusts from grasshoppers, two different orthopteran groups often confused on screen and on the page. Locusts (suborder Caelifera) and grasshoppers (suborder Ensifera) look alike but differ in behavior, notably locusts’ ability to form gregarious swarms. For the reader, the distinction is secondary: both are edible and nutritionally similar.

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Published on May 30, 2026

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