Will you be eating insects soon | The Economist

一、Q1:

By 2050 there will be 10bn human mouths to feed.

"Our planet genuinely is on a collision course."

They're small, creepy and crawly, but could insects be key to feeding the world sustainably?

So will farming and eating insects help solve one of the 21st century's biggest challenges?

instance:

It's a solution that actually works in the small village and one day it's going to reach the store next to you.(欧，它在我到达大学那一刻就来到了我身边)

At one of the world's most famous museums, Dr Erica McAlister curates the insects collection.She doesn't believe insects are just for studying.

"So these are the mealworms, this is a type of beetle."

"These are the larvae, very thin exoskeleton, which makes them nice and crunchy."

Dr McAlister is an "ento-evangelist" on a mission to promote insects as a sustainable food of the future.

"It's really weird because we consume crustacea and insects branched off from crustacea.So these are basically just land prawns but with their shells kept on all the time, simple as that."

To promote the culinary delights of these creatures, the museum even hosts tasting nights.

"And then you can always pair them with wine because everything tastes better with wine."

It's an ancient human habit.

"They found a coprolite, a frozen, fossilised poo containing insects' remains."

Today, around 2bn people choose to eat insects on a regular basis.

More than 1,900 species are eaten across 130 countries and insects are already legally permitted in many foods sold in the West whether you realise it or not.

"A piece of chocolate, you are allowed bits of insect chitin in the chocolate because they do fall in, they get everywhere."

sake:

With an estimated 10bn mouths to feed by 2050 changes to global consumption habits are essential.

And the real value of insects may not be as individual delicacies but as a major source of our most important nutrient, protein.

Breakfast in the future is less likely to be bugs on brioche and more likely to be an insect-protein shake.

"I think within the next 10 to 20 years, we'll be consuming insects a lot more but not necessarily in the form that we see here but in the form of pasta, such as insect flour and things like that I think that's how they're going to be in our diet ."

二、Q2:

So how much could powders made from insects help feed a growing population and protect the environment?

team:

On the tropical island of Madagascar, the scientists behind one pioneering project hope many others will follow their lead.

"Welcome to Madagascar Biodiversity Center!"

The centre is home to Valala Farms, which produces protein powder from crickets.

"So she is preparing the cotton balls and she is going to water it so the crickets will find a place to lay their eggs."

"Every morning I have a bowl of yogurt and to it, I add cricket powder."

"This is cricket powder farmed at Valala Farms in Madagascar."

"The aroma is incredible."

"It almost has a chocolate smell and I take one spoonful which is like 25 grams, which is enough for all your protein and nutrients for the day."

"You just stir it in and it is a nutrient-packed, healthy way to start the day."

"Mmm, love it!"

Farming insects is a lot easier and more sustainable than rearing other kinds of animals.

"There are many advantages to eating edible insects."

"They convert feed to protein much more efficiently than cows or pigs or chickens."

"They require far less water."

"They don't need to waste all that water on keeping their body cool."

"They use less land."

"They're faster to grow, and they're packed with nutrition."

"We can take advantage of 300m years of insect evolution!"

As well as producing cricket powder, scientists working here are also on the lookout for other indigenous species of insects.

"Our team is doing some lab and field research to find different potential edible insects across Madagascar."

instance:

Dr Fisher created the project in 2006 after years studying Madagascar's declining forests.

The scale of the threat from the country's hungry human population dawned on him.

"I wanted to explore the forest and find all the undiscovered insects in Madagascar."

"But along the way, I realised that these people have no choice."

"If they want to feed their kids, they're going to have to cut the forest and grow a crop on it for one or two years."

background:

1. Today, only 10-15% of Madagascar's original forests survive and its endangered species continue to be hunted for food.Global warming is also severely affecting the food supply here.

"We don't have anything to eat, no harvest because of the lack of rain."

2. In 2021 Madagascar suffered from what's being called the world's first climate-change famine.

"Thousands of people are in brink of starvation so that's why we started this project."

In response Valala Farms is scaling up production and planning to open a new facility in 2022.

It aims to mass produce cricket powder with 54% protein per 100 grams. That's twice the level of protein found in chicken.

The product is already being trialled in places such as this orphanage where the insect powder is added to porridge.

And where the benefits of cricket farming are taught in classes.

One study in Madagascar found a 50% reduction in bushmeat hunting following the introduction of cricket farming.

"Our model in Madagascar can expand to feed millions of people in Madagascar but also could expand to feed 5m people in Africa."

"The same system will work in almost anywhere there's food insecurity, biodiversity issues and climate change."

"It's a solution that actually works in the small village and one day it's going to reach the store next to you."

三、But there is a fly in the ointment.

For insects to hit supermarket shelves in the West and beyond farming will have to be industrialised and scaled up enormously.

There will need to be a lot more factories like this one which food company Aspire is building in Canada.

"And in this building, there will be over 90,000 bins each of which will contain approximately 30,000 crickets."

Today, the insect-protein market is worth $1bn.

While that figure is predicted to rise to $8bn by 2030, it's still a fraction of beef's $333bn market value.

The CEO of Aspire believes they've already discovered ways to scale up quickly and challenge more established parts of the food industry.

"In the 1950s the average chicken, when it was harvested at 56 days old was just under 2lbs."

"In 50 years you've taken that same animal and you've managed to quadruple its size."

"When we first started in 2015, we were producing one-tenth of the number of crickets, we now produce from the same unit of production and we're able to shorten that process of achieving those efficiencies far greater than any other form of livestock animal."

AI and automation will help produce a tightly controlled environment.

"When you farm outdoors, you don't control virtually anything."

"When you farm indoors, because you're able to calibrate and control all of the variables that impact the growth of insects temperature, humidity, sound pressure, light intensity and so this allows for a self-optimising production model."

But to take off, the insect farming industry is going to need friendlier laws.

In 2021 the EU permitted humans to consume mealworms and industry advocates hope this will be the first of many decisions to open up the market.

"In most countries around the world insects are already widely consumed as a food source."

"What's new here is that we are formalising and in many ways standardising the production of this protein source."

Potential economies of scale offer another way for insect farming to challenge the inefficiencies of traditional and environmentally unsustainable animal agriculture.

"Our facility today that we're building that's going to come online next year is situated on 12 acres of property."

"Now according to the USDA, 12 acres is just about enough land to raise approximately three or four cows."

"Three or four cows means you're producing maybe, maybe a few thousand kilograms a year of meat from that 12-acre parcel of land We are going to produce 12m kilograms a year of crickets from 12 acres."

四、Farming and eating insects at scale also has the potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from food production.

Crickets produce around half as much carbon dioxide per kilogram compared with chicken.

"Fun fact: crickets don't actually emit methane so their greenhouse-gas emissions, which are already low are even vanishingly smaller as a result of that."

五、But there's a very long way to go before insects come close to challenging livestock and other food industries.

Supply will need to increase dramatically.

"Part of why adoption hasn't been more forthcoming is a lack of scalable supply."

"In order for you to be able to meet the volume requirements of some of the largest food companies in the world, they require thousands upon thousands of metric tonnes just to be able to launch in some markets with one product."

"I mean, the combined output of our entire industry today doesn't even meet that."

Insects could crawl into many more foods, from protein bars to pizzas.

Whether insects become a staple of the global diet may depend on many factors, from climate change to psychology.

In the 1970s eating raw fish was unthinkable in many countries, but today, sushi is found on supermarket shelves across the world.

There may yet be a change in the global appetite for insects.

叮咚：

食用昆虫（Entomophagy）是指人以昆虫当作食物。虫卵、幼虫、蛹、成虫自史前时代到今日都被人当作营养来源。昆虫在营养价值、饲养难易、成本、对环境的冲击上被认为是解决粮食问题、环境污染与全球暖化的最佳食物。