Edible insects – are they safe to eat?

The Global Food Safety Resource (GFSR) recently published an article on the food safety aspects of edible insects, written by Keya Mukherjee, FAO Food Safety Specialist, and Vittorio Fattori, FAO Food Safety Officer.

While edible insects can come with various potential benefits – environmental, nutritional and economic – these benefits must be weighed against possible challenges, such as food safety issues. This premise has been covered in detail in an FAO document published in 2021, Looking at edible insects from a food safety perspective. Challenges and opportunities for the sector.

Topics such edible insects, seaweeds, cell-based food and others fall under the purview of the emerging area of new food sources and food production systems, which is being monitored and analysed by the FAO food safety foresight programme.

Read the GFSR article here.

Read about FAO’s work on foresight in food safety