Eat Bugs, Save the Planet?

Would you snack on crackers made from crickets, then wash them down with a drink made from fly larvae? Not as a dare, but as part of your everyday eating? It’s possible the future may bring exactly that.

By 2050, it’s estimated there will be 9 billion people on Earth. (Nearly 2 billion more than today.) To feed them all, the amount of food produced will have to almost double. We’ll need more land for crops and livestock. Raising more food will also take more water for the plants and animals.

A lot of natural resources already go toward making what we eat. Producing one person’s food in the United States requires about 1,300 gallons (4,921 liters) of water every single day. How can our resources keep up if we need to double the amount we use now? Some people think raising insects as food could help.

The practice of eating insects as part of a regular diet is called entomophagy (say en-tuh-MAHF-uh-jee), and about 2 billion people around the world do it. In fact, more than 2000 insect species are enjoyed in about 113 different countries. What kinds of tasty insects are eaten? Beetles, caterpillars, bees, ants, grasshoppers, and crickets are most often on the menu. In Thailand, 20,000 cricket farms produce 7500 tons (6800 mt) of crickets for food every year.

Of course, not all cultures are comfortable with eating insects. If your first thought was, “Gross!” you were probably raised by generations of people who believed you shouldn’t touch bugs, much less eat them. So, why should the world consider insects for dinner?

Raising insects uses fewer resources than other animals. Most insects can be raised anywhere because they don’t need wide, open spaces to roam — a cricket “farm” is really a warehouse filled with thousands of bins where the crickets live. Many insects aren’t picky about what they eat and can be fed with waste products created by farming and raising livestock. That means we can recycle waste into insect food. Insects do need water, but they require far less than other animals.

Picture your family’s last trip to a burger restaurant. It took about 25 pounds (11.3 kg) of cow feed and 1800 gallons of water to end up with one pound of ground beef — about four burgers. The same amount of crickets only needs two pounds (0.9 kg) of feed and one gallon (3.8 liters) of water. If a family of four ate insects instead of meat for one day a week, about 172,000 gallons (651,000 liters) of water would be saved every year.

Beyond using fewer resources, raising insects for food could help the planet in another, more surprising way — they burp and fart far less than other animals. Passing gas is a natural result of digestion. As the body breaks down food, gases such as methane and carbon dioxide are released. In a cow, the methane goes out when it burps. (In people, a burp is swallowed air coming back up. Gases are released through the other end.) Methane and carbon dioxide rise into the atmosphere and collect in a layer around Earth. That layer can trap heat and warm the planet, leading to climate change. About 15 percent of the planet’s methane comes from animals such as cows. Insects such as mealworms, crickets, and locusts release 80 to 100 times less methane than cattle.

Insects are also good sources of nutrition. Grasshoppers, crickets, and some kinds of worms are rich in vitamins. A serving of crickets has more iron than a serving of beef. Mealworms have almost twice as much protein as lean chicken breast.  Some species of crickets are even high in fiber.

Changing to an insect diet won’t happen overnight. You can’t go into your backyard and grab a bunch of bugs for dinner. Not all species are safe to eat, and wild-caught insects may have been sprayed with poisonous pesticides. Insects need to be raised safely and in healthy conditions, like any other food.

Cultures where insects are thought of as yucky will also need to change their minds — maybe by starting with cricket powder mixed into food instead of eating the bugs themselves. It is possible to make that change, though. People were doubtful about plant-based “meat,” and now you can find Beyond Burgers and Impossible Burgers in most grocery stores. Someday cricket burgers may join them on the shelf.