Owen Lewis
NEWSFLASH: there's deep genetic reasons why Europeans don't "Eat ze BUGZ." Europeans and their colonial descendants have a deep rooted aversion to eating insects. New reseach finds it's not just cultural, it has a genetic origin going back thousands of years. A new genomic study from Spain’s Institute of Evolutionary Biology analyzed dental calculus (tartar) from 745 ancient human samples across Eurasia, some up to 33,000 years old. They found almost no evidence of routine insect consumption in northern Eurasian populations — in stark contrast to humans in tropical regions and even Neanderthals. Key findings: • Northern Europeans showed very little insect DNA in their ancient dental tartar. • Genes for chitin digesting enzymes (chitinases) carry mutations that reduce the ability to break down insect exoskeletons in northern Europeans. These mutations became fixed around 9,000 years ago. • Neanderthals, who lived in the same environments, appear to have consumed insects more regularly (including fly larvae and mosquitoes), with better adapted chitinase genes. Tropical populations of humans (as well as chimpanzees and gorillas) still carry genetic variants supporting higher chitin digestion, reflecting more consistent insect availability and consumption. Lead researcher Pablo Librado explained: “The scarce presence of insects in the diet of northern Eurasians suggests that the absence of entomophagy is not solely due to recent cultural factors, but also to a long ecological and evolutionary history.” Lower insect biomass and diversity at higher latitudes likely made regular entomophagy impractical, leading to genetic and cultural abandonment over millennia. Though the fact that Neanderthals consumed insects regularly throws doubt on this as a sole explanation. The study highlights how deeply our diets have been shaped by our genomes and environments. It's a compelling look at the deep roots of what we do (and don’t) eat.
