The way in which we eat is just not sustainable. Modern industrial agriculture, extractive capitalism, and greedy western appetites are all, partly, responsible.
Searching for alternatives to current farming methods is prime to addressing the climate crisis. The search is already underway, with “alternative meat” corporations reminiscent of Beyond meat, This and Meatless farm now successfully hitting UK supermarkets.
Nonetheless, to permit our planet to get better, we’ll need multiple solutions that cater for various climates and landscapes. So should this include eating insects?
Advantages
Nutrition
Greater than two billion people worldwide, particularly in Asia, Africa and South America, already eat insects as a staple a part of their weight loss plan. That is unsurprising given they’re fit for human consumption, abundant, calorie-dense and nutritious.
Insects provide high-quality complete protein – as much as 69 per cent depending on how they’re prepared, far surpassing that of meat or fish. They’re complete as they contain all nine essential amino acids and are wealthy in fibre, iron and calcium.
Environmental impact
Research into farming insects for food has grown rapidly and there are actually greater than 400 corporations producing insect protein globally.
Insects could be farmed almost anywhere with little environmental impact. Ynsect, a French company, uses 98 per cent less land and emits 40 times less carbon than beef per kilo produced.
Francesco Majno, the Italian entrepreneur behind the Small Giants cricket snacks, claims that its crickets emit lower than 0.1 per cent of the greenhouse emissions of cows to supply the identical amount of protein.
Insects also require little or no water – even lower than chickpeas! They’re ate up by-products of the food industry. And their excrement is used as fertiliser for crops – all contributing to the circular economy.
Efficiency
Many insects also reach maturity in days moderately than the months or years it takes livestock and might produce hundreds of offspring – making them incredibly efficient.
Their life cycles are also highly conducive to factory farming: at certain stages of their lives they produce heat and at other stages they need heat, so an indoor farm could be more efficient than an outside farm in a hotter climate.
Barriers
Yuck factor
Despite the advantages, we still have a method to go before insects feature prominently in western diets.
Insect protein is just not as sexy as alternative meat, and shall be competing with brands which have long histories, large marketing budgets and lower cost points.
Eat Grub’s whole insects did manage to get onto Sainsbury’s shelves in 2018 but have been removed since – an indication that westerners aren’t quite ready for crunchy roasted crickets.
In the meanwhile, using insects in familiar products reminiscent of mince, crackers and tortilla chips is a surer path to acceptance. VEXo mince, a plant and bug based mince, is an amazing example of how insects could slowly be weaved into much loved foods reminiscent of burgers and meatballs.
Brexit
Prior to the brand new EU food regulations, people had been in a position to eat and trade insect products freely within the UK. Nonetheless, Brexit made things complicated, with no clarity on the legal status of edible insect products within the UK within the transition agreement.
Because insects are categorised as Novel Foods, there’s a costly barrier to trading. Firms must apply for authorisation of their products, which is just not a straightforward process and has turn out to be a significant financial challenge for a lot of corporations.
Nonetheless, there was positive progress. At the top of last 12 months, the Food Standards Agency gave the green light for some species of mealworm, cricket and fly to be put back on the table within the UK because they were included within the EU transition agreement.
Transition
But attitudes are starting to alter. By 2027, the edible insects market is projected to achieve £3.36bn.
The longer term of food is one during which insects are a part of the answer, helping us transition away from the disastrous land-intensive, industrial agriculture most of us currently thrive off.
It has taken the plant-based food movement many years to get to where it’s now, so if insects can do the identical, it should be a giant win.
This Writer
Sophie Johnson is a zoology graduate and passionate conservation blogger from the UK.
