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As someone who believes in protein innovation as one of the critical components of a food system transformation toward a resilient system that can realistically feed the world in the face of dwindling natural resources, many might think that I would advocate for insect protein. Wrong.
Insect protein is for the birds.
The primary reason that I see insect protein as a risk too great to invest in this: according to the United Nations (UN), the top two reasons for the next pandemic are related to the intensification of animal factories. This makes sense. Animals living butt to snout in their own feces are, of course, a breeding ground for disease. Sure, the animals are given 80% of all the antibiotics on the market (also a breeding ground for antimicrobial resistance in humans), but it isn’t enough to stop swine fever, avian flu (something that started in the 90’s and on which we still don’t have a handle), E. Coli, Salmonella and more.
Per Our World in Data, there are 78.5 billion chickens in factories-a frightening ratio of 10 birds for every human on earth-with ammonia from the high concentration of birds so potent that attendees have to enter the factories with respirators or other protection. Now imagine the number of bugs needed to make the quantity of food produced from chickens.
According to AI, 4,500-12,000 insects are needed to produce the equivalent amount of meat from one 5-pound broiler chicken. This results in 650 trillion x 1000 individual insects to produce the same amount of food from the current amount of chickens in factories. It is more insects than I can actually comprehend.
Ultimately, insect protein increases the number of waste-producing beings spreading disease in confined areas by the trillions! For a list of the 77 (by my count) bug-borne viruses according to the CDC, click here. Of course, with further intensification of bug factories, even more viruses than those on the list could emerge.
This Our World In Data graph shows the impact of our last pandemic, COVID-19, which was also animal-borne
Further, it isn’t a foregone conclusion that many insects, given their size, wouldn’t escape and negatively impact the wild insect populations, gravely impacting biodiversity.
- If we know that intense, confined animal production produces unhealthy animals, and
- If we have concerns about life-threatening pandemics stemming from unhealthy animals, and
- If we know that massive antibiotics distributed to these animals result in antimicrobial resistance in humans while still not curbing all pandemic threats, and
- If we have concerns that, given their size, massive insect production means escaped bugs altering the biodiversity landscape,
why would we ever increase these threats by trillions?
So, while I am all for protein innovation and scaling to increase food system resiliency, limit natural resource depletion and diminish supply chain disruptions from a dependence on animal protein, I do not believe that insect protein is a smart option.
Rather, it seems to be a Darwin Award-worthy idea.
This Our World in Data image shows that 78.5 billion chickens are slaughtered yearly for roughly 8 billion people (the global population.)
Related: Skyrocketing Beef Prices Point to a Much Bigger Food Supply Problem