What?! Insects! I’m not eating insects, are you mad?!
Hmmm, yes, we hear that a lot, don’t we? But in many parts of the world, a whopping 25% of the world in fact, eating insects is just as everyday as us here eating a beef burger or a chicken wing. But, the future for all of us really is in insects.
Not convinced? Here’s something to think about.
With the world’s population expected to rise from 7.5 billion as it is today, to 10 billion by 2050, we’re already stretching the resources we have to feed everyone. Local communities and natural habitats are being displaced in order to clear land to grow soy crops to feed livestock. Millions of cows are belching methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere at an unmanageable rate. The global carbon footprint of raising livestock is greater than that of all the planes, trains and automobiles on the planet. Places like California are literally running out of water. The demand for meat is so great, that intensive farming practices that have more than questionable ethics around animal welfare are commonplace, also meaning that the use of growth hormones and ‘just in case’ antibiotics is routine.
All this doesn’t make for a great future, does it? So we need an answer. And that answer is insects.
Insects and Sustainability
Farming insects such as crickets is measurably less resource intensive and is completely sustainable. The stats for water usage alone, given that one of the world’s most technologically important areas, California, is running dry, are shocking. For every 15 litres used in cricket farming, 30,000 litres are used in cattle farming.
One cow requires 12 times more feed than the same weight of crickets does. Crickets take up less space too, as they’re smaller, obviously, and are used to living in close proximity to each other. The killing of crickets is more human, as they’re gently cooled down to freezing which puts them into a hibernation state.
Insects and Nutrition
Insects, and in our case, crickets, are extremely nutritious. Crickets contain two to three times more protein than beef. There’s also more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk, more potassium than bananas and more vitamin B12 than fish. And that’s all pretty impressive, right?
Something to think about as you tuck into that steak tonight? We think so.