Where's The Meat?

Edible insect proponents, including the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency, have touted insects as an untapped source of protein for a food-insecure world.

The bad news is that a new study has thrown into question whether edible insects, in this case crickets, could be raised in large enough numbers to make a dent in the looming global food crisis.

"The potential for crickets to supplement the global supply of dietary protein appears to be more limited than has been recently suggested," the study's authors conclude.

Look At The Feed

In a study published in the online journal Plos One, researchers at the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the University of California, Davis, raised common house crickets on five different diets. Some ate chicken feed. Some ate a mixed salad of food waste and crop residue.

One of the strongest arguments for raising crickets and other insects for food is their ability to survive on waste streams, but in the study, the groups that ate only unprocessed waste died before they could be harvested.

An FAO report in 2013 said that crickets need 12 times less feed than cattle, four times less feed than sheep, and half as much feed as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein.

Crickets in the study that were fed conventional chicken feed converted protein at a rate of about 35 percent, a rate only a little better than chickens. Giving chicken feed to crickets would be missing the point.

Expanding conventional feed for livestock requires massive land clearing, use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

The researchers also found that when crickets were reared in close quarters - conditions that mimic potential industrial production - the critters' protein conversion efficiency dropped.

Farmers Respond

Cricket farmers say the study focused too much on food that crickets don't eat, and when comparing chicken farming to bug farming did not take into account ecological advantages such lower greenhouse gas emissions, the lack of antibiotics and hormones in insect farming, and more humane treatment of animals.

Read More:

• Crickets Are Not a Free Lunch (PLOS ONE)
• The Environmental Benefits Of Eating Crickets Vs. Chicken: It's Complicated (Popular Science)
• Eating Insects Isn't as Eco-Friendly As People Say (TIME)
• Crickets Aren't the Superfood They're Cracked Up to Be (Gizmodo)