Save the world: eat a bug

Save the World: Eat a Bug

“People who can’t tell the difference between entomology and etymology bug me in ways I can’t even put in words.”

You can find this quote, paired with a photo of a young curly-haired beekeeper, on Tinder. This profile is mine, and it gives my (rare) matches the impression that I like bugs. But this is an understatement; I love bugs.

Studying entomology, I spend an ungodly number of hours working with insects. Much of this work is what you would expect: collecting insects, raising beetles in a lab for experiments, meticulously photographing moth genitals under a microscope. Ya know, the usual stuff. But one of my favorite things to do with insects is a little more unorthodox. I cook them!

Insects taste great (1), but that’s not why I eat them. Bugs could be the next big advancement in modern farming.

Agriculture is great: it produces all food that I quite enjoy eating. The problem is 7.5 billion people also enjoy eating, and our current agricultural systems cannot produce enough food to feed everyone. Today, about one in ten people worldwide is chronically malnourished. The population is also growing at a rapid rate and is expected to rise to over 9 billion by 2050 (2). Feeding everyone means the agricultural industry will need to increase output significantly, up to 70% by some estimates.

So how do we feed everyone without destroying more of the Amazon Rainforest for pasture? Eat bugs! Insects are incredibly efficient at converting resources into edible protein. Pound per pound, they consume about 1/10 the food and 1/100 the water that cattle produce and the protein they generate is higher quality than most other animals. Insects also take up less space. While pasture accounts for 70% of the land use in modern agriculture, breeding bugs would free up that land for crop production or other uses. Because insects breed so quickly insect farms (3) can produce substantial outputs, in small areas. Though each insect is small, trust me: thousands of them add up quickly.

Insects have other advantages too; think of a cockroach. If you can picture it in your trash, you’re accurate, they can eat anything, including our trash. Many insects recycle waste by eating it, making it usable protein once again. This contrasts heavily with modern livestock and their diets that require edible food to be grown specifically for them. Insects also waste a lot less energy. Of a 1,200 pound steer only about 490 lbs are edible. The rest is things like bones, guts, fur and other gross bits. Insects don’t bother with most of that (4) and as such the entire bug is edible, compared to only ~40% of a cow.

Cows especially are a nightmare for global warming. They fart (and burp) a lot, releasing methane into the air. Insects don’t have that effect (5). Because they eat less, they poop less, about 100x less than cows. Their poop can be used as fertilizer for fields, and unlike large animals, the risk that their fertilizer will contaminate water through runoff is low.

Even ignoring their environmental benefits, insects are healthy for us. Pound per pound they have a higher rate of protein versus fat and significantly more micronutrients than any meat we consume now. The FDA already allows insect parts in many of the things we already eat (6). The average American eats 2 pounds of pure insect per year, crushed into foods like tomato paste and peanut butter.

Mass rearing insects also reduces the risk of zoonotic diseases, or diseases that jump from animal to human. Diseases like Swine Flu and Covid-19 happened because we eat and raise animals for food. The diseases that affect insects are very different than the ones that affect humans and the risk of future zoonotic disease outbreaks would be significantly lowered if insects were eaten instead of mammals.

If you still aren’t wild about chowing down on a big juicy caterpillar, that’s cool. Insects can look gross sometimes, and there’s definitely a cultural “eww” factor in the Western world (7). But some cooks can make anything look appetizing, insects included. And I wasn’t lying when I said they tasted good!

Insects can also be ground into flour that works as a substitute for normal flour in baked products. This allows all the benefits of insect protein, without the “eww”. Mindsets can change too; not long ago, people looked at lobster with disgust but it is now a delicacy (8). If you still aren’t attracted to the idea of eating bugs (9), the protein they produce can be added to your pet’s food as a healthy and sustainable ingredient.

I eat bugs because they make the world more sustainable. I see them they as a critical next step in increasing agricultural production. Insects are truly revolutionary, and I hope they change the way we produce animal protein. I have yet to convince a tinder match to eat my homemade mealworm pasta, and my family has banned my cooking from our gatherings. But I won’t give up! It may take some time for insect eating to catch on, but when it does the world will be a better place.

1. Insects are extremely diverse, so they can be prepared in many different ways, but I’ve found that they often have a shrimpy/nutty or sunflower seed/popcorn flavor. They also have a unique ability to sequester some flavor from whatever they eat. For example: I raised dubia roaches for a while and when I fed them bananas they tasted like dried banana chips. The best tasting insects, in my opinion, are the big ugly white grubs found underground- they have a delicious rich, nutty flavor!
2. The demand for meat is also rising. As countries develop and the citizens become richer, they eat more meat on average because they can afford more. While being a vegetarian would solve many of these same issues, people like their meat.
3. Insect Farms are a real thing already! Larger farms are automated warehouses, and smaller operations, like this one, can easily fit in a shipping container.
4. Seriously, insects don’t have bones or lungs and lots of other stuff we mammals tend to think of as essential. They do have exoskeletons, but exoskeletons are edible and full of Iron, Calcium, Vitamin B-12, Omega-13, fiber and others micronutrients.
5. I don’t even think most insects can burp or fart. Some, like termites, emit greenhouse gases but none of the bugs we would consider raising commercially for food release gases.
6. Take a look at this FDA page for nightmares, including how many rat hairs and insect eggs are allowed in your peanut butter.
7. A ton of cultures have no issues with eating bugs, but they still don’t usually use them as a staple of protein, more an occasional snack.
8. Lobsters are also very closely related to insects. And while we’re on the topic of delicacies: caviar is just fish eggs- that’s gross.
9. I’ve been using the terms ‘insects’ and ‘bugs’ interchangeably, but technically bugs are a specific group of insects. However, this is not an article on insect taxonomy and I will continue to use them interchangeably. Bite me.

This article was originally written for the Schwartz Award: a Cornell award for agricultural journalism. It won.