© Takoradee/Creative CommonsDeep-fried insects for sale at a food stall in Bangkok, Thailand.
Meat-eating is an inefficient way to get calories, because livestock such as cows and sheep must ingest around 10 times more vegetable matter, in terms of calorie count, than they convert into meat. En route to a steak, a huge number of food calories are wasted.
And yet, humans need protein. Fortunately, insects are full of it.
There are at least 1,700 edible insect species around the world, from beetles to locusts to grubs. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in conjunction with Wageningen University in the Netherlands, has begun a research project to determine the potential of these insects to supplement the food supply in Europe and other places. At a conference in late January in Rome, scientists began work on a plan to exploit insects as alternative sources of protein, and incorporate them into livestock feed and food products.
