With the population growing, humans have started to look at ways to find more sustainable food sources that give us the proper nutrition we need. Some people are suggesting that a way to deal with this is to start eating bugs.
Eating bugs isn’t a new concept. It happens in a lot of other cultures, but they aren’t eating bugs to deal with food sustainability issues, it is just a part of their culture. The people arguing that it should be normalized in America aren’t doing it for cultural reasons. They are doing it because they think it is one of the best ways to have a more sustainable food source.
I’m not the type of person to judge people for what they eat. I’m perfectly okay with people eating bugs for any reason, culturally or other, but I don’t really see eating bugs becoming the main solution to a possible food shortage.
The U.N. is predicting that the world population will increase to almost 10 billion by 2050, and demand for food will go up by 70%. Clearly, we will need an answer to this, but I really don’t think bugs will be the answer to this issue.
To start I really don’t think that this will be normalized in America. In America bugs are seen as gross, and I don’t really see any way that the perception of bugs will shift to the point where people are eating them like chips. Obviously, it is possible, but it would take a lot of time and effort to change how bugs are seen culturally. This is also just in America, if eating bugs is the solution it would also have to catch on in many other countries, which is even more time, money and effort.
I also just don’t think it’s efficient. I’ve never tried bugs, but I can’t imagine they would be very filling. They are protein rich, but I feel like you would need a lot of bugs to feel full. Also, I don’t know how easy it would be to farm bugs. It probably wouldn’t be that hard, but you would need to have space for bug farms. Certain bugs can only live in certain climates so you would also have to deal with that.
It just seems like a lot would have to change for eating bugs to be normalized. You would need to set up new federal guidelines to make sure they are safe to eat, and new infrastructure for bug farms. This is on top of trying to create cultural change seems like a lot to do in very little time.
Mark Warren can be reached at [email protected]