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Articles

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2016)

Practices of Entomophagy and Entomotherapy in Cebu Island, Philippines

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32871/rmrj1604.02.05
Submitted
March 7, 2017
Published
December 31, 2016
PDF

Keywords

  • Entomophagy
  • Entomotherapy
  • Entomology
  • Key Informants

Abstract

The different features of entomophagy and entomotherapy practiced by the key informants and local villagers in Cebu Island, Philippines were documented.A survey was conducted in remote areas of Barangay Alambijud, Argao and BarangayLusaran, Cebu City, Cebu from June-October,2012 to discover the medicinal and edible uses of different insect species in these sites. Fourteen key informants were identified with the aid of two sampling methods- snowball technique and purposive sampling. Open-ended questionnaires were employed to obtain authentic and significant information from the key informants. An inventory on the knowledge on the wild edible and medicinal insects in the study areas is presented here. Results showedthat these key informants profusely utilized wide range of biological resources in diverse ways, and thus contribute to their daily activities. As a whole, the factors that influenced their entomological practices include their socio-demographic and educational background, accessibility to urban societies and the open availability of certain resources particularly the insects they use and the influence brought about by their family and community. Moreover, these informants had different insects used in their practices, and they had their ways of preparing and administering these as medicines and food. Regardless of these differences, all of them were able to perceive that the insects used as medicine and food were equally beneficial to them.Traditional knowledge regardingentomotherapy and entomophagy in Cebu is very essential since folk medicine is still one of the most important resources for food and discovery of unknown natural drug resources. It is indicated that these medicinal and edible insects are comparable with other conventional food commodities by incorporating scientific validation to the traditional knowledge.

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