ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we present a summary of established concepts about the texture or consistency of insect foods, including articial diets. We characterize these concepts in the context of feeding mechanics in insect feeding behavior and within the constraints of anatomy and physiology discussed in Chapter 7. To meet the texture/consistency requirements of insects, it must rst be recognized that there is a tremendous range of feeding specializations. These specializations include strict uid ingestion, extra-oral digestion (of solid food materials, including tissue/cellular structures in plants and animals), ingestion of soft solid materials such as fat body, ingestion of particulate materials such as our and meal, and ingestion of hard materials such as wood (including woody plant tissues and bark). The difculty in dealing with the incredibly broad range of insect foods that are used by the millions of species of insects is part of the challenge of grasping concepts of texture in insect foods and the fact that many insect foods (like human foods) are combinations of the broad categories or hybrids of the texture types that we are trying to characterize.
