In this interview, Dr. Francini, a clinic nutritionist, highlights the value of edible insects as food and the problem of diets standardization:
"Interest in edible insects and products containing them recently exploded. What do you think about, from a nutritional point of view?
From a purely nutritional point of view they are a valid alternative to common foods, as insects are a complete and high quality source of nutrients.
The most interesting aspect is the low environmental impact of their production, a major advantage considering the growing need for food sources required by the planetary demographic increase.
Are we witnessing a sort of irreversible "food globalization" that will tend to standardize diets?
Like other aspects of our lives, food consumption is also globalizing. Whether it is good or bad it is difficult to establish and would require long and complicated reasoning. Personally, I see more negative aspects.
Globalization is a long-term phenomenon that involves this generation and many others in the future, but I do not think it is irreversible. Even in the food sector, variety is part of beauty and gives taste to life, so I think that local differences should be preserved and studied. Studied as history is studied, because food is a vehicle of historical culture. We could say that those who ignore their food tradition can not really know the present one."
