Sunday 9 May 2021

Are Insects 'Meat'?

This may seem a stupid question but individual answers, arising in people's minds, might be quite important! There are some 900+ edible species of insects that potentially form part of a future human diet (https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/may/08/if-we-want-to-save-the-planet-the-future-of-food-is-insects). The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation note that the current methods and scale of food production are unsustainable. They describe insects as an 'underutilised' resource. These arthropods are, of course, animals. Eating them, however, perhaps shouldn't raise the same ethical concerns as eating beef, chicken, lamb or pork. Current agricultural methods used to generate plant-based foods (even for vegetarians and vegans), can kill many thousands of insects. Insects can be 'farmed' anywhere, in any environment. They, unlike cattle, don't generate methane (a potent 'greenhouse gas'). Insects can also be grown on the by-products of the food industry and are full of nutrients. It has been suggested that insect protein is simply not as 'sexy' as the products of alternative 'meat' companies and laboratory grown actual meat. It has been pointed out, however, that it took the plant-based food movement decades to get where it is. As we need multiple solutions to the problem of feeding humans without destroying the planet, getting insects more generally accepted as 'meat' could be a win-win.

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