Could Insects Play A Bigger Role In Our Food Supply?

Could Insects Play A Bigger Role In Our Food Supply?

We are often told that something we can do to fight climate change, is to eat less meat or dairy. While there are certainly greenhouse gas issues with animal production, it is not that simple. But animals play a unique and indispensable role in our food supply– they can thrive on sources of nutrients that would otherwise be unavailable to humans. A familiar example would be the ruminants that can live on the cellulose in grasses both in pastures and from crops (cows, sheep, goats, etc.). But there is an interesting source of feed for other farm animals that can't use cellulose: Insects. Most people are not attracted to the idea of eating insects directly (although some cultures have included insects in their diets). A more broadly appealing option is to use insects to feed animals like poultry, hogs and fish because they can do well on that diet. This article will describe a pair of companies that are scaling up this potential food supply enhancement. The leading insect candidates for this approach are crickets, mealworms and Black Soldier Flies. What these organisms can do for us is to "up-cycle" nutrients from various food system "side-streams" and/or from food waste.