Since the publication of the FAO report on edible insects in 2013,
insects have been promoted as an ecological and ethical food. Not a
traditional part of Western diets, insects are in the West something new
and exciting to have on the plate. During the past few years, cricket
farming has started in Finland and a variety of insect foods have
entered the market. This paper was inspired by the observation that the
public discourse seems to emphasize the novelty value of insects as food
and to take their ethicalness and ecologicalness for granted. The paper
presents an analysis of Finnish media coverage on entomophagy and
reflects on the ethics, ecology and aesthetics of eating insects through
multidisciplinary research literature. Based on the analysis, the
Finnish entomophagy hype seems to lack a notion of insects as animals.
Edible insects are discussed in terms of raw material or ‘mass’, and
likened to plants rather than animals. However, existing studies show
that more research is needed before conclusions can be made about the
ecological and ethical aspects of the emerging insect industry. In
animal philosophy it has been suggested that perhaps to appreciate
insects, we need to bring them to our tables. We conclude, however, that
relational insect ethics, including other ways of co-habitance with and
appreciation of insects deserve to be fostered before starting
producing insects at an industrial scale.