When it comes to eating insects, it seems as though everyone has an opinion. In Britain, our only real exposure to people eating insects are from gap yah instagram’s of travelers in Thailand trying out a fried bug, and those challenges in ‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’. Both of these exposures have a way of making insects seem very strange and completely disgusting. However, around 2 billion people in the world eat insects as part of their normal diet, and environmental activists hope that this number only gets bigger.
Insect eating has increasingly been viewed as sustainable, which it is when we compare it to eating livestock. 70% of agricultural land in the world is being used to raise livestock. 14.5% of all carbon emissions are produced solely from livestock, and it takes 2,400 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. Clearly then, this is an issue considering the population is due to hit 9 billion people in 2050, and to feed all these people would mean producing twice as much food than we already do. Therefore, there has been a shift in attention towards eating insects, since farming them uses far less land and water. Furthermore, there’s already 40 tonnes of insects to every human!
Some people might question whether insects are as nutritious as livestock, yet findings have shown they are high in vitamins, protein and fibres. House crickets contain 205g of protein per kg, with beef only containing 51g more per kg (I promise that was the last numerical fact).
Clearly then, there seems to be serious benefits health wise and globally in eating insects, right? Well, it’s questionable. Even if people from the West started to include insects into their diet, would they actually stop eating livestock? Probably not. I reckon that it wouldn’t act as a substitute at all but just another source of protein. If people can’t stop eating beef all the while knowing how damaging it is for the environment, why would they swap all their meat consumption for a grasshopper burger? If the act of eating insects is to be adopted in the West, it will be in addition to existing diets (although this could be very different if it does become difficult in the future to produce enough livestock for everyone to eat).
Another question arises when we think about who would eat insects. Many would assume that eating an insect is more ethical than eating a cow or pig for example. However, vegans would most likely still be opposed to entomophagy. Vegans usually don’t eat honey or wear silk, since its production interrupts with the lives of insects. Therefore, it would definitely not be any better for vegans to actually start farming and killing insects for eating purposes. Vegetarians may also want to consider the fact that insects do create incredible structures, and have complex societies. Plus, if you’re functioning perfectly well on a vegetarian/vegan diet, why start eating insects?
Insect farming could on one hand create jobs for people living in poor areas, benefiting their community as a whole. However, we currently don’t know enough about insect farming to state that there would not be any detrimental consequences to the environment. Instead, a better approach to a sustainable future may be to promote eating less meat, not just swapping the consumption of one dead animal to another.
SOURCES:
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/will-we-all-be-eating-insects-50-years/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170929133501.htm