Bugs For Breakfast? – George Durrant

Bugs For Breakfast? – George Durrant

With the definite threat of climate change, it is now our responsibility to prevent it as much as possible. Something that could help with this would be switching from a heavily mammalian and bird diet for our meat and protein intake to a heavier insectoid diet. If the majority of the western world switched to this diet then climate change would be set back massively, as for 1kg of protein only 1g of greenhouse gasses are produced where as cows produce 2,850g for every 1kg of protein produced. Due to insects being small and therefore not needing much space to roam, they can be farmed vertically and only need 15 square metres to produce 1kg of protein. Insects require far less food, water and land to produce the same amount of protein and with a far smaller environmental cost. 

Appetising?

Even with all these benefits to the world, one struggle bug-based food companies are having is what they have labelled… the YUCK factor. This is when, despite the benefits to the world and the potential benefits to their health, people will refuse to eat bugs due to being grossed out by the vile nature of Insects. Despite 2 billion people in the world eating bugs, it’s still been a struggle for these businesses to convince the consumer to become bug eaters. At the rate we are going, it’s Bugs… or death!

Many Asian Countries’ diets are made up partly of insects