With the Earth’s growing population, increased urbanization, and the rise of middle-class lifestyles in developing regions, the demands on the world’s food supply are becoming heavily stressed. One solution is eating insects. Bugs and larvae already make up part of the natural diets for pigs, poultry and fish. In the future, humans may turn to eating them directly. The advantages are that insects are highly efficient in turning feed into nutrients. Environmentally, insects are preferable to large animals. There are challenges involved in cultivating insects as a food source, but a number of factors are increasing interest in exploring the possibility.
Key Takeaways:
- Eating insects is a way of addressing future concerns of meeting the consumption needs of an ever-growing population.
- The larvae of insects contain nutritional elements that could replace the need for current sources of food.
- Although a challenge in the past, there are regulations in place that make raising insects for consumption purposes more viable.
“The production of traditional feed ingredients such as cereals, fish meal and oilseeds must be reduced and substitutes found to make more efficient use of resources.”
Read more: http://theconversation.com/eating-insects-is-good-for-you-and-the-planet-118675
