Bugs: It's What's for Dinner

In its May 2015 issue, The Walrus published "Bugging You," a brief-ish profile of the Goldin Brothers of Next Millennium Farms out of Campbellford, Ontario. It wasn't the first time I had heard of them. In March I was doing some research on the state of entomophagy (the practice of eating insects) in Canada, and Next Millennium Farms is one of the big players in the country. The Goldins currently breed crickets and mealworms for human consumption, in forms ranging from protein powder, to cricket flour, to whole, roasted and seasoned insects as part of their Bug Bistro line. 

I was a little surprised at how little the author and the Goldin's discussed the ethical issues that the widespread adoption of entomophagy could theoretically answer. The discussion was limited to a single sentence on the relatively minimal ecological impact that rearing crickets has when compared to traditional livestock. In producing more edible "meat" per kilogram of feed, insects as a food source appear to be much easier on the environment than the usual fare. According to a recent study, however, crickets might not be the environmental panacea that we had previously hoped for, only performing minimally better than poultry in feed conversion ratios (FCRs). While crickets aren't entirely off the table yet (more research still has to be done), plenty of other insect species could very well prove to have low enough FCRs to make them a sustainable option. Better still, it might prove possible to raise edible insects on alternative feed sources, such as waste, or organic side-streams.

Beyond the potential ecological advantages that may come with switching to a bug-based diet, entomophagy carries with it few of the animal welfare concerns that come with eating more psychologically developed animals (pigs, cows, dogs). Without going down the rabbit hole and discussing the philosophy of pain, consciousness, and so on, I'll just say that it's likely that insects don't experience anything close to what we know as "suffering." Instinctively, I have much fewer qualms with the idea of killing a bug than I do with killing a mammal. But maybe I'm just a different kind of classist.