United Nations: 'Overpopulated Earth? Time to EAT BUGS'
United Nations: 'Overpopulated Earth? Time to EAT BUGS'
World population is slated to top nine billion by 2050, and seeing as how arable land is being rapidly swallowed by towns and cities, oceans are increasingly overfished, and climate change is disrupting traditional farming, a new United Nations study proposes a twist on Marie Antoinette's dietary advice: let them eat bugs.
Bugs are not only good eatin', say the authors, but they're also highly efficient sources of nutrition. Your average insect, the report claims, requires a mere two kilograms of food to produce one kilogram of what it charmingly refers to as "insect meat", a far better feed-to-food ratio than, for example, a fatted calf, which requires eight kilograms of feed to produce one kilogram of beef.
Two billion of our current seven billion fellow travelers have already welcomed bugs into their diets, the report contends. Over 1,900 insect species find their way into our alimentary canals, with beetles being the most popular at 31 per cent, followed by caterpillars at 18 per cent; bees, wasps, and ants at 14 percent; and grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets at 13 percent.
"Many insects are rich in protein and good fats and high in calcium, iron and zinc," the authors note. "Beef has an iron content of 6 mg per 100 g of dry weight, while the iron content of locusts varies between 8 and 20 mg per 100 g of dry weight, depending on the species and the kind of food they themselves consume."