eating insects could it be the solution
to saving the world
well increasingly it is being touted as
such with many people believing it to be
an appropriate response
to the growing consumer awareness around
the cruelty and environmental impact
of farming the animals we currently
consume so how does it compare
and should insects be the future of food
firstly let's look at the environmental
impact it is well documented by this
point
that animal farming is simply not
sustainable although if you want to find
out more about its impact on the
environment
then check out this video that's popping
up in the top corner right now
so is insect farming a more sustainable
option than our current system of animal
farming
simply put yes in thailand which is
currently the largest producer of farmed
insects
cricket farming produces half as much
co2 as chicken farming
and uses 25 percent less water it also
uses less land
and produces less waste but how does
farming insects compare to farming
plants
according to the united nations fao in
the u.s it takes 2.5 kilos of feed
to produce 1 kilo of chicken 5 kilos to
produce 1 kilo of pork
and 10 kilos to produce 1 kilo of beef
however for
insects it takes around 1.7 to 2 kilos
of feed
making it more efficient than other
animal products
however insect farmers will often use
poultry feed as it's been shown to make
the insects grow quicker
meaning that the feed often contains
foods such as maize and soy
other foods used as feed include
different types of seeds grains and
vegetables
this ultimately means that consuming
insects
is less efficient than simply consuming
the plants directly
and one of the world's leading experts
in edible insects and sustainability
argued that all animal production
systems create inefficiency
as they require converting plant matter
into animal matter
as the experts stated from an
environmental perspective
plants that can be consumed directly are
best used as food
instead of feed for insects plus when
different types of foods were analyzed
for the amount of protein and energy
they produce on an area of land the same
size the production of soy which was the
only plant-based food analyzed
was shown to provide over 25 percent
more energy
and nearly twice as much protein when
compared to mealworms the second most
efficient food type analyzed
the lead office subsequently stated that
eating a bean burger
is the most sustainable option however
proponents of insect farming also talk
about how some insect farms are using
waste food
such as the food that supermarkets
normally throw away is feed for the
insects
but there are two main issues with
insect farming using waste food
firstly it needs to be commercially
competitive with feeding insects
specialized feed which is the common
practice right now
however a study analyzing the impact of
different diets on farmed crickets
showed that compared to processed food
waste from supermarkets
crickets fed and poultry feed ended up
with a 75
larger gain in weight than those being
fed the processed food waste
and they gained that larger weight six
days faster as well
this means that using a specialized feed
is a more commercially viable
and efficient option for insect farmers
just as it is for animal farmers who
raise pigs
chickens and the animals that we
currently eat and secondly there needs
to be a consistent supply chain
of waste products which means that we
are building a system of food production
that is reliant on there being food
waste that means
if the food waste stops we then have to
start growing feed for the insects
and we go back to square one in other
words at a certain point
the food stops becoming waste and simply
becomes a necessity for the industry
in effect it becomes feed but from a
sustainability perspective
we want to reduce the existence of food
waste to begin with
not repurpose it and make it something
that entire industry is reliant on
but what about the ethical argument
currently around 1.2 trillion insects
are killed each year to be used as
animal feeds and human food
with that number set to rise
considerably in the near future
this number also doesn't include the
additional 2 trillion wild caught
insects who are estimated to be killed
for food each year
as well insects are commercially farmed
in plastic trays or bins
where they spend their lives until they
reach slaughter weight they are normally
killed by being packed tightly together
and then frozen into a block
or by being ground up and turned into a
powder alternatively some companies will
steam
boil or suffocate the animals to death
in truth the ethics of what we do to
insects
comes down to the insect's capacity to
suffer and experience
subjectively in essence their sentience
with the available knowledge that we
have now an animal sentience
we might take the position that eating
insects is morally preferable
because they are less sentient than
animals such as pigs
cows chickens fish and the animals that
we conventionally consume
however this argument misses the point
the question isn't
are they as sentient as other farmed
animals but are they sentient in a
morally relevant way
firstly insects have a nervous system
and nociceptors
often referred to as pain receptors they
can possess endorphins and have been
shown to have the ability to learn
such as avoiding stimulus that they
associate with causing a negative
experience
or actively choosing certain stimulus
that they associate with a reward
such as food fruit flies act in a way
that suggests that they experience
chronic pain and in the case of crickets
they have been shown to react to
receiving
morphine staying in a box that was
getting progressively hotter
for a longer period than the crickets
that were not given morphine
after five days of being given morphine
they even started exhibiting signs of
addiction
when they were no longer given the
opiate so for all of the scientific
ambiguity
that does still exist around the
sentience of insects they possess
biological systems and display behaviors
that make them deserving of moral
consideration
but plants on the other hand are not
sentient they don't have the capacity to
experience subjectively
meaning that morally the consumption of
plants is still the more ethically
justified decision
that we can make this becomes especially
important
when stacked against the sheer numbers
of insects that would need to be killed
to replace the animals that we currently
farm and kill
for example we would need to slaughter
around 363
000 crickets to get the same number of
calories
that comes from one slaughtered cow but
we slaughter over 324 million cows
every single year meaning that to get
the same number of calories
that we get from all the cows that we
slaughter we would have to slaughter
around 120
trillion crickets instead animals who
when given morphine
showed behavioral changes suggestive of
the capacity
to experience pain and it'd be basically
impossible to quantify how many insects
would need to be killed to replace the
other 80 billion land animals and around
0.8 to 2.3 trillion marine animals that
are currently killed for animal products
every single year so while scientific
knowledge on insect sentience is still
in its early days
what we already know about these animals
makes their lives morally valuable
and it makes creating a system that
would end up slaughtering an entirely
incomprehensible number of them
a serious moral concern that we are
ethically obligated
to avoid for if we choose to ignore what
has already been suggested about the
consciousness of insects
we may one day in the same way that we
have in regards to the sentience of
other non-human animals
realize their capacities exceed what we
once thought
simply put insect farming is not an
adequate solution
to the ethical or sustainability issues
surrounding our current system of animal
farming
growing plants directly for human
consumption is still the most efficient
use of resources
and is also the best way to reduce the
suffering that we cause to animals
as well
you