"People throughout the world have been eating insects as a regular part of their diets for millennia. ...The earliest citing of can be found in biblical literature... From ants to beetle larvae – eaten by tribes in Africa and Australia as part of their subsistence diets – to the popular, crispy-fried locusts and beetles enjoyed in Thailand, it is estimated that insect-eating is practised regularly by at least 2 billion people worldwide. More than 1900 insect species have been documented in literature as edible, most of them in tropical countries. The most commonly eaten insect groups are beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, cicadas, leaf and planthoppers, scale insects and true bugs, termites, dragonflies and flies. ...Insects are healthy, nutritious alternatives to mainstream staples... Insects promoted as food emit considerably fewer greenhouse gases (GHGs) than most livestock... insects are very efficient at converting feed into protein. Insects can be fed on organic waste streams. ...Insect harvesting/rearing is a low-tech, low-capital investment option... Insect rearing can be low-tech or very sophisticated, depending on the level of investment."