Could insects be the next protein source? With all of the environmental issues that have been caused by growing at a rapid rate, people are looking for new sources of protein. With 1,900 edible insect species to choose from, could insects be the solution?1
Benefits of Eating Insects
iIt turns out that there are many benefits to adding insects to one’s diet. First, insects are rich in protein and nutrients such as iron and zinc. Due to their small size, insects also do not require anywhere near as much space as livestock and do not require much feed or other resources. In fact, one kilogram of feed yields 12 times more cricket protein than beef protein.2
Insects have also been found to emit lower levels of tolerant, they should require less water than animal agriculture. It has also been theorized that insect meal could potentially replace soybeans or fishmeal that are fed to farm animals, which would lower the cost of livestock products and free up crops for human consumption. Since insects can be raised on food scraps and animal manure, insect farms could be used to recycle waste as well.3
Issues Involved with Eating Insects
Consuming insects, which is called entomophagy, is by no means a new idea. Ancient Romans and Greeks ate beetle larvae, locusts, and cicadas. Today, nearly 3,000 ethnic groups continue to be entomophagists. In Asia, Africa, and South America, the insects consumed range from crickets to caterpillars to tarantulas. Since insects are consumed in most other parts of the world, why did this practice not continue in modern Europe and later North America, and what does that mean for insects as the future of protein?4
In order for the bugs as protein idea to work, Europeans and Americans would have to overcome their aversion to insects. Paul Rozin, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, stated, “It’s not that insects taste bad. It’s that the idea of an insect is upsetting to people.” To ease this transition, many companies, such as Six Foods, incorporate insects invisibly into foods that people already like. Six Foods created Chirps, which are made from black beans, rice, and cricket flour, and look similar to tortilla chips.5
Another issue involved with using insects as a large-scale food source is that we do not yet know all of the risks. Adrian Charlton, a biochemist at the United Kingdom’s Food and Environmental Research Agency, warns that insects captured from nature may be covered in , while raising insects in an industrial setting also poses its own set of risks. For instance, animal manure may contain bacteria, such as Salmonella, and food scraps may be contaminated with fungus.
Animal manure can also contain high levels of heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, and lead, which would then enter the insects’ bodies. Charlton stated, “We know in some cases insects will tolerate much higher levels of metals than mammals. And therefore that’s a risk in terms of using them as a feedstock.”6 In fact, according to a new study that was published in the journal PLOS ONE, the crickets that were raised solely on food waste died before they could be harvested, and the crickets on the grain-based diet, which is similar to what chickens eat, only had a 35% protein conversion rate, which is only slightly higher than chickens.7
There is also still a great deal to be learned about the pathogens that insects themselves carry. Lastly, it is possible that people who are allergic to shellfish will also be allergic to insects, due to the fact that the muscle protein sequence tropomyosin is similar in insects and crustaceans.8
Next Steps
https://web.archive.org/web/20160404104049if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/r9M2JPscbmQiiThe European Union and the United States are taking cautious approaches to approving edible insect products. David Drew of the company Agriprotein stated, “It’s absolutely absurd that the natural food of chickens, which is maggots…is banned, and fish, which they’ve never eaten, is permitted.”9 However, Nordic Food Lab’s Ben Reade worries about the future of the insect industry:
Insects themselves could be the most sustainable thing, they could have no carbon footprint at all… But then if we insisted on freeze-drying them all using huge amounts of energy and sending them halfway across the planet for energy-consuming protein extraction and then decided to sell that protein in another part of the world shaped like chicken breasts in a little plastic packet – well, there’s nothing sustainable about that at all.10
