The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations supports the production
of edible insects as a promising and sustainable source of nutrients to meet the increasing demand
for animal-derived products by the growing world population. Even if insects are part of the diet
of more than two billion people worldwide, the practice of eating insects (entomophagy) raises
challenging questions for Western countries where this is not a habit. The research applied the
Rasch models and showed that, in the case of hunger or need, 70.8% of the sample declared that
they would be willing to eat insects. The willingness to habitually consume and pay for insect
food is very low, but the percentages are higher than people who had actually had insect tasting
experiences. This demonstrates that a communication process is necessary that aims to overcome
psychological/cultural barriers. Only in this way will it be possible to increase the propensity to
consume insects.
