Eating Insects: Thailand, Mexico and Germany Attitudes

What Thai researchers, Mexican food scientists, and German consumers actually say about insects on the menu — and why the gap between them is wider than any food trend story admits

June 2026 · Researched via local sources using LikeLoc · 25 Thai sources · 27 Mexican sources · 29 German sources

Live searches: Thailand · Mexico · Germany

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Read a global food trend piece about insects and alternative proteins and you'll get a predictable arc: they're sustainable, nutritious, and the world will need them to feed nine billion people. Somewhere in the piece, a futurist will note that two billion people already eat them. Somewhere else, a Western consumer will admit they're "open to trying" an insect bar.

That summary is accurate. It's also almost completely useless for understanding what people in different countries actually think.

I searched the same question — "public attitudes toward eating insects and alternative proteins" — through local Thai sources in Thai, local Mexican sources in Spanish, and local German sources in German. What came back was not a single story about the protein transition. It was three entirely separate conversations, each shaped by a different history with the same food.

In Thailand, insects are a government-backed economic sector. In Mexico, they're a contested piece of cultural identity. In Germany, 62% of people say the main reason they won't eat them is disgust.

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A sector, not a trend

In Thailand, insects are not framed as a novelty or a future food — they're a present-day industry the government is actively building. The Thai Office of Industrial Economics has published a comprehensive industry report on edible insects as an economic sector, and the country's BCG (Bio-Circular-Green) economic model explicitly identifies insects as one of Thailand's "new economic animals."

What struck me searching Thai sources is how institutional the conversation is. The National Food Institute, the Thai Senate's research bureau, Mahidol University, Thammasat — these are not the voices of food influencers promoting insect protein bars. These are state and academic institutions treating insect production as an industrial policy question.

The Thai public attitude sits somewhere between familiar and transitioning. Insects — crickets, grasshoppers, silkworm pupae — have been part of northeastern (Isan) cuisine for generations. What's new is the push to move them upmarket: processed into flour, incorporated into snacks, packaged for urban consumers who grew up eating them at roadside stalls but might hesitate to serve them to guests. Thai researchers describe a significant openness in younger consumers, especially when insect protein is presented in forms where the insect itself isn't visible — crispy rice crackers, protein-enriched products, functional foods.

Over 53% of Thai citizens want to reduce their meat consumption, and 45% are interested in switching to plant-based foods — numbers that suggest the protein transition in Thailand isn't a debate but a direction.

The concerns that do exist are specific: food safety standards, quality control, and whether the insect farming supply chain has sufficient regulatory oversight. Not disgust — logistics. Thailand's challenge isn't getting people to accept insects; it's industrialising an existing practice at scale.

→ Explore the live Thai search on LikeLoc

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Heritage food, contested future

Mexico has one of the richest entomophagy traditions in the world. Chapulines (grasshoppers), escamoles (ant larvae), maguey worms, and dozens of other insects have been eaten in indigenous communities for centuries. Researchers from ECOSUR, UNAM, and the National Biodiversity Commission have documented the ethnoecology of edible insects in Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca — regions where insect consumption was never interrupted, where it carries cultural significance rather than novelty value.

But the Mexican conversation in 2026 is not a triumphant story about indigenous food wisdom finally being recognised. It's more complicated.

The gap between rural and urban Mexico is sharp. In Chiapas and Guerrero, insects are a normal protein source and an important part of local food identity. In Mexico City and Monterrey, acceptance falls sharply — urban consumers, especially those influenced by colonisation-era food hierarchies that coded insects as "poor people's food," are not naturally enthusiastic. A Tec de Monterrey researcher has been developing insect flour-based foods specifically designed to make insects less visible and less "insect-like" for urban consumers — a sign that the cultural barrier is real enough to require a workaround.

In Mexico, chapulines are on the menu at celebrated Mexico City restaurants. They're also eaten from paper bags at Oaxacan markets for a few pesos. The food is the same; the cultural valence couldn't be more different.

The UNAM science communication centre published a piece asking "Do people eat insects?" — written in a register that suggests the answer is not obvious to its urban Mexican audience. That's the friction. Mexico has centuries of evidence that the answer is yes, and yet the urban food taboo around insects is real enough to require scientific reframing.

Plant-based alternatives show a different trajectory in Mexico: growing interest among health-conscious urban consumers, but framed as innovation rather than tradition. The two tracks — ancient insect knowledge and modern plant protein — aren't really in conversation with each other in Mexican local sources.

→ Explore the live Mexican search on LikeLoc

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The word that keeps appearing

In the German local sources, one word recurs across nearly every source: Ekel — disgust. It's not just that Germans are reluctant. The emotion is specific, named, and treated as the primary barrier to entry.

A survey cited by multiple German outlets found that 62% of Germans say disgust is the main reason they don't want to eat insects. Only about 30% say they'd be willing to try them. Around 45% can imagine eating insects, and 30–40% have already done so and rated the experience positively — but this group is clearly the minority, and the majority sentiment is viscerally negative.

The German conversation has an interesting structure: it's rational and well-researched at the institutional level, and ambivalent-to-negative at the consumer level. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) appeared at Berlin's Grüne Woche 2026 to discuss "rethinking protein." The University of Hohenheim maintains an expert roster on protein research. Ernährungs Umschau (Nutrition Review) has published peer-reviewed pieces on insects as a sustainable protein source. The German scientific and policy community is clearly engaged.

But Tagesschau ran a piece titled "Insects as Food: Feed for the Conspiracy Scene" — noting that insect-in-food stories have become fodder for misinformation about forced dietary change. Quarks, Germany's public science magazine, ran a piece questioning whether protein supplements are even necessary. The consumer layer is suspicious in a way the institutional layer is not.

In Germany, the science says insects are sustainable and nutritious. The consumer says: I'd rather not, and I suspect someone is trying to make me.

The EU approved several insect species for human consumption in 2023, and Germany is legally required to permit these products. German consumer protection agencies at the state (Landesamt für Verbraucherschutz) level have published factual guides on which insects are approved and how they must be labelled. The market exists — insect bars, pasta with insect flour — but remains niche. The price point is higher than conventional protein sources, and the disgust barrier hasn't been shifted by availability.

Plant-based proteins are a different story in Germany. A Pflanzenproteine – von der Nische zur Normalität ("Plant Proteins — From Niche to Normal") report documents a genuine market shift: plant proteins are increasingly mainstream, and that move has happened much faster and with much less consumer resistance than insect proteins.

→ Explore the live German search on LikeLoc

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Three conversations that never meet

What I found searching local sources in three languages is that the global "insect protein future" narrative is real — but it doesn't describe a single conversation. It describes three separate ones that happen to involve the same food.

Thailand is in a scaling conversation: insects are already part of the food culture, the government is industrialising them, and the challenge is quality and supply chain, not acceptance. Mexico is in an identity conversation: a practice with deep indigenous roots is being simultaneously rehabilitated as heritage and repackaged for an urban market that colonialism taught to be embarrassed by it. Germany is in a resistance conversation: a population that accepted electric cars, heat pumps, and plant milk is drawing a harder line at the insect bar, and the word for it is disgust.

The global headline — "insects are the future of protein" — is technically true and practically useless for any of these three places. In Thailand it undersells an existing industry. In Mexico it misses the class and colonial tensions embedded in the food. In Germany it runs straight into an emotion that no amount of sustainability data has yet dislodged.

As a local perspective, that's what strikes me: the three countries aren't at different points on the same journey. They're on entirely different journeys, shaped by entirely different histories with the same cricket.

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Key data at a glance

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Selected sources

Thailand — 25 local sources searched

• [PDF] รายงานฉบับสมบูรณ์ (Final Report) - สำนักงานเศรษฐกิจอุตสาหกรรม — "Final Report on the Edible Insect Industry" (Thai Office of Industrial Economics, full market and policy analysis)
• [PDF] บทความทางวิชาการ - วุฒิสภา — "Plant-Based Food: Thailand's Opportunity in Global Markets" (Thai Senate academic research bureau)
• [PDF] แมลงเพื่อการบริโภค แหล่งโปรตีนทางเลือกใหม่ แห่งอนาคต — "Insects for Consumption: A New Alternative Protein Source for the Future" (nutritional comparison of edible insects vs meat)
• [PDF] ศักยภาพการแข่งขันของอุตสาหกรรมโปรตีนจากพืช (Plant-based Food) — "Competitive Potential of the Plant-Based Protein Industry" (Thammasat University thesis, includes Thai consumer survey: 53% want to reduce meat, 45% interested in plant-based)
• ม.มหิดลเปิดอนาคตผลิตภัณฑ์ชุมชนสร้างสรรค์ ด้วยนวัตกรรม'ข้าวเกรียบว่าว' — "Mahidol University Opens Future of Creative Community Products with Kite Cracker Innovation" (insect-protein-enhanced crispy rice snacks)
• สร้างอนาคตให้อาหาร ด้วยอาหารแห่งอนาคต — "Building the Future of Food with Future Foods" (government BCG model context)
• โปรตีนทางเลือก ปฏิวัติวงการอาหาร ด้วยนวัตกรรมสู่ความยั่งยืน — "Alternative Proteins: Revolutionizing the Food Industry Toward Sustainability"

Mexico — 27 local sources searched

• [PDF] El Colegio de la Frontera Sur - Repositorio ECOSUR — "Ethnoecology of Edible Insects" (ECOSUR, documents indigenous insect consumption practices in southern Mexico)
• [PDF] etnoecología de insectos comestibles y su manejo tradicional por la... — "Ethnoecology of Edible Insects and Their Traditional Management" (traditional indigenous knowledge)
• [PDF] la etnoentomología en la alimentación - Biodiversidad Mexicana — "Ethnoentomology in Food — Mexican Biodiversity" (CONABIO, surveys edible insects in Mexican biodiversity)
• [PDF] ¿Los insectos se comen? - dgdc.unam — "Do People Eat Insects?" (UNAM science communication, notably framed as a question for urban audiences)
• Investigadora Tec desarrolla alimentos a base de harina de insectos | Tecnológico de Monterrey — "Researcher at Tec Develops Insect Flour-Based Foods" (Monterrey Tech, on making insects less visible for urban consumers)
• Entomofagia en México: consumo de insectos, productos derivados, y beneficios — "Entomophagy in Mexico: Insect Consumption, Derived Products, and Benefits"
• [PDF] Insectos comestibles como modelo de negocio sostenible - UVserva — "Edible Insects as a Sustainable Business Model" (University of Veracruz)

Germany — 29 local sources searched

• [PDF] Insekten als nachhaltige Proteinquelle - ernährungs umschau — "Insects as a Sustainable Protein Source" (Nutrition Review, peer-reviewed)
• [PDF] Pr:Ins - Status-Quo-Bericht - NewFoodSystems — "Status Quo Report on Insect Protein" (NewFoodSystems research consortium)
• Lebensmittel: Insekten zum menschlichen Verzehr - neue EU-Zulassungen für Insekten in Lebensmitteln — "Food: Insects for Human Consumption — New EU Approvals" (German consumer protection guidance on EU-approved species)
• Insekten als Lebensmittel – eine Alternative auf dem Teller? | Nds. Landesamt für Verbraucherschutz — "Insects as Food — An Alternative on the Plate?" (Lower Saxony State Office for Consumer Protection)
• Insekten als Lebensmittel: Gruselig oder zukunftsträchtig? — "Insects as Food: Creepy or Promising?" (includes survey: 62% cite disgust as main barrier)
• Insekten als Nahrungsmittel: Futter für die Verschwörungsszene | tagesschau.de — "Insects as Food: Feed for the Conspiracy Scene" (Tagesschau, on misinformation currents in the insect-food debate)
• [PDF] Pflanzenproteine – von der Nische zur Normalität — "Plant Proteins — From Niche to Normality" (documents mainstream shift in plant proteins vs slow insect adoption)
• Faktencheck Speiseinsekten: Insekten in Lebensmitteln – das müssen Sie jetzt wissen — "Fact Check Edible Insects: What You Need to Know Now"
• 16.01.2026: Protein neu gedacht – das BfR auf der Grünen Woche 2026 — "Rethinking Protein — the BfR at Green Week 2026" (Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Berlin)

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Methodology

All three searches were run on June 15, 2026, using LikeLoc, which queries each country's local internet in the local language and returns AI-summarised results in English. The query was identical: "public attitudes toward eating insects and alternative proteins". LikeLoc's AI expanded this into locally-phrased queries — Thai, Spanish, and German — and searched local news, academic repositories, government publications, and food industry sources. Thailand returned 25 sources, Mexico 27, Germany 29. All cited figures and named sources come directly from those local results.