The rearing of cattle and pigs for meat production results in an estimated 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. With worldwide consumption of beef and pork expected to double by 2020, alternatives are being investigated. Of these, perhaps the most notable has been the development of “in-vitro meat” which is lab-grown tissue not requiring the production of a whole organism. Initiated by NASA as a form of astronaut food, in-vitro meat production took its first steps in 2000 when scientists used goldfish cells to grow edible protein resembling fish fillets. Since then, turkey and pig cells have been used to create spam-like substances, and Time Magazine has included in-vitro meat in its list of the top 50 breakthrough ideas of 2009.
Here’s the fixins:
Five insect species were studied: fifth larval stage mealworms Tenebrio molitor L. (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), fifth and sixth nymphal stage house crickets Acheta domesticus (L.) (Orthoptera: Gryllidae), third and fourth stage nymphs of migratory locusts Locusta migratoria (L.) (Orthoptera: Acrididae), third larval stage sun beetles Pachnoda marginata Drury (Coleoptera; Scarabaeidae) and a mix of all stages of the Argentinean cockroach Blaptica dubia (Serville) (Dictyoptera: Blaberidae). Currently, T. molitor, A. domesticus and L. migratoria are considered edible, while P. marginata and B. dubia are not. The latter two species were included since they are a potential source of animal protein, for instance by means of protein extraction. These two species can be bred in large numbers with little time investment and are able to utilise a wide range of substrates as feed
Here’s the paper:
Oonincx DGAB, van Itterbeeck J, Heetkamp MJW, van den Brand H, van Loon JJA, et al. (2010) An Exploration on Greenhouse Gas and Ammonia Production by Insect Species Suitable for Animal or Human Consumption. PLoS ONE 5(12): e14445. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014445
Abstract
Background
Greenhouse gas (GHG) production, as a cause of climate change, is considered as one of the biggest problems society is currently facing. The livestock sector is one of the large contributors of anthropogenic GHG emissions. Also, large amounts of ammonia (NH3), leading to soil nitrification and acidification, are produced by livestock. Therefore other sources of animal protein, like edible insects, are currently being considered.
Methodology/Principal Findings
An experiment was conducted to quantify production of carbon dioxide (CO2) and average daily gain (ADG) as a measure of feed conversion efficiency, and to quantify the production of the greenhouse gases methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) as well as NH3 by five insect species of which the first three are considered edible: Tenebrio molitor, Acheta domesticus, Locusta migratoria, Pachnoda marginata, and Blaptica dubia. Large differences were found among the species regarding their production of CO2 and GHGs. The insects in this study had a higher relative growth rate and emitted comparable or lower amounts of GHG than described in literature for pigs and much lower amounts of GHG than cattle. The same was true for CO2 production per kg of metabolic weight and per kg of mass gain. Furthermore, also the production of NH3 by insects was lower than for conventional livestock.
Conclusions/Significance
This study therefore indicates that insects could serve as a more environmentally friendly alternative for the production of animal protein with respect to GHG and NH3 emissions. The results of this study can be used as basic information to compare the production of insects with conventional livestock by means of a life cycle analysis.
=======================================================
No mention if the authors chow down on locusts at lunchtime. My advice: you first.
Of course, if this becomes widely acceptable, I’ll gladly send Al Gore a box of hornets and some ketchup. It’s the least I can do.
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bugs not bigs. Ugh, WUWT articles rarely make me so queazy.
Now to save the planet we are to eat like birds. No thanks, if that was good people would have been doing it a long time ago. As for CO2 it is very common and very necessary and activist scientists want to ban it for about as many reasons as its use.
Don’t us gas and oil, incandescent light bulbs, drive cars, have children, central air in house, and more. Do eat bugs. What crap?
JER0ME says: January 10, 2011 at 9:53 pm C’mon. How about a hat-tip to the commenter (I cannot recall who) who has mentioned this at least twice so far?
Those are only reserved for ___________?
Buggy critters are excellent fish catchers and fish much healthier for you. Alongside fruits and vegetables.
If this is such a great idea, why are they serving caviar and toast points at their global warming conferences……
Slimy, yet satisfying!
Tenebrio molitor (mealworm) is considered edible? Isn’t it also called “stink beetle”?
“Eric Gisin says: January 10, 2011 at 7:14 pm
I bet the authors are vegies.”
As a veggie (lacto-ovo) I can honestly say if you like meat and it works for you and your health then enjoy it. The best thing we could do overall, not just meat, is to be grateful not gluttonous when we eat.
Bon Appetite mon amies
I’ve eaten Dutch food in company cafeterias, local lunch treats in Eindhoven. It tasted like they were already eating the bugs. This should be nothing new for the Netherlands,
right up their ally.
I hate to give them ideas – but: With a little bio-engineering you could soon breed some yummy cow-sized bugs 🙂
So lemme guess; the Japanese are eating whales; just for scientific research though; to see how long the Japanese population can be sustained eating whale meat.
Of course with less whales, there’s going to be too much krill in the ocean, which is not good for the ocean, since they eat the phytoplankton, that make oxygen.
Well you see that means that the Japanese can eat both the whales; and the krill just to keep things in balance.
So now it appears, they can eat the roaches and locusts; stay away from those New Zealand Hu hu grubs (laval giant Weta (s) )(no s in Maori); we’ve got those saved for us; the taste great when chocolate covered.
Of course if you eat all the bugs, then the birds are going to starve; but the Japanese have a fix for that too; so they can eat crow, just as easily as doing scientific whale tasting.
You know I think we humans could just about eat everything else on the planet. If we ate the cats and dogs like the Vietnamese do; then we could also eat all the dog food. Well lots of Americans eat dog food already; it’s part of the Obama austerity programme.
Now if we were self sufficient on energy (energy independence), we could take energy, and air and water, along with some rocks; maybe sand from the Sahara; and we could make our own food out of rocks the same way Mother Gaia does; then we wouldn’t have to eat any other critters, nor bugs neither !
Of course we have people in America, who don’t like us to eat rocks either, they raise Cain when we scoop the tops off mountains (well they call them mountains back east) to get at all that lovely coal underneath; to get that energy independence of course.
And we are going to need all the CO2 that we get from that energy independence coal, because we can’t make food out of rocks, and water, without the CO2 from the air.
So it’s all interlinked as you can see; and we really don’t have any kind of independence from anything; when you boil it all down; and you need energy; even to boil it down.
I think it is much worse than we thought; I can just sense that something was bugging me about this latest news story.
Can’t win ! Well Murphy says we can’t even break even; let alone win !
Scott Covert says:
January 10, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Scott – ok, I will eat sea bugs and you can eat the land ones! 😉
Oh Lord. I never was very fond of the most benign of “bugs” (shelled shrimp) when I was a kid. They started out with shells, and looked like squishy grey bugs. But, as an adult, I like ’em. Then there are the deep-fried shrimp-heads commonly found at Sushi restaurants. At first, “ugh…” Now I can chomp ’em down with simulated gusto … so long as I’ve had a few tall beers prior. Really, not too bad, tho’ the damned antlers are razor sharp and can cut up my softie mouth real good.
But moving forward into the realm of … maggots (I don’t care what you call ’em, but that’s what they look like) – or the larvael stage of insect morphology, is just WAY past the bright line of acceptability. After you see a dead mouse asquirming with big old horsefly maggots – well, it doesn’t matter one iota that the grower assures that their maggy-little-bastards ate a diet of virgin whitefish and vat grown protoplasm … I’ll not get that image of zombie-mouse out of my head.
Per the poster above that remembered the 1970s “grow worms, dry-then-powder them, add to hamburger for a nutrition booster” article, I am reasonably sure that there could be some packaging that “hot-dogs” the things into an acceptible texture-taste form. I mean if we have machines that can take whole raw chicken carcasses (post “get the good parts out” butchery), and nibble off every last little protein bit in order to create millions of tons of Chicken Nuggets, I’m just as certain that our industrious and genius German Machinists can figure a way to zip open trillions of giant Madagascar cockroaches and fish out the tasty bits that can be reconstituted as tube steaks. But really folks – it will have to be transmogrification before this omnivore actually goes out and buys some at Safeway.
_____
On a different note, how long will it be before there are Berkeley pep rallies decrying GMO bugpaste? After all, if there ever were a GMO target that has a LONG history in genetic modification experimentation, it is the Class Insectae. Think Drosophila Melanogaster (fruit fly) and kin.
Or Bugs Rights groups. Mothers Against Insect Destruction (MAID). Bugs’R’Us. Linguistic revisionists that declare Buggies to be disparaging and offensive to the critters. Sanguine articles in the NYTimes, “Collective intelligence of apis possible greater than dolphins”. Computer programmers fired for reporting that their code has bugs. Kids warned not to “bug” each other. Audio adverts (just like the one I heard on NPR the other day advising young people that to use the word “gay” as in “Gee, that party was just so gay”, offensively, are offending gay people everywhere) that … oh well you see where this is going.
Bug off, folks! Get the little buggers into “invisible” forms such as hot dogs, and like pit snouts, cow ears and horse dicks, I’ll eat ’em ‘long side my kids at Diddnyland. But until that time, an insectophage I shall remain naught.
GoatGuy
Around our house, my #11 boot eliminates lots of main courses!
“The warmists can eat bugs to their little hearts content, but we all know that they won’t stop there. They’ll be forcing people to subsidize this with taxes, and trying to get them forced onto menus nationwide.”
You mean like how the price of meat is artificially low due to subsidies? Those subsidies are there to protect domestic farmers from cheap imports, but what’s happened is that beef is cheaper than a salad. Plain common sense would tell a thinking person that a cheeseburger should be more expensive than a salad, but common sense is in short supply these days.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/06/how-farm-subsidies-harm-taxpayers-consumers-and-farmers-too
If this becomes the norm, kids–and the rest of us–will learn lots more about insect metamorphosis than we ever have in the past. Can you imagine the food editors debating the merits of the fifth stage pupae versus the third stage larvae for whatever insect they are preparing? Do you suppose one will substitute well for the other without significantly altering the flavor of the dish?
Idd & Boris:
I’ve discovered that most things are usually tastier if deep fried (preferably in good old beef suet), even beef kidney (just cut into inch pieces and cook crisp). Not going to give up my medium rare charcoaled T-bone or spicy fried chicken, but I’m not above trying new things and would eat whatever was available to stay alive in an emergency.
I once counted the calories in all the edibles available in our cabinets/refrig during a reorganization and came up with enough to feed 2 people ~6 months @2000/day and yet my wife considered that we hardly had anything to eat. But good to know if a “big one” occurs.
I doubt that there would be much “real” efficiency improvement if standard grains such as corn/wheat are used to feed the insects which are then given to animals (weight for weight). This would only differ if the insects could live off of unwanted leftovers such as corn shucks/cobs, cheap grasses etc. Do I see an industry for insect gene engineering?
Put the bugs into animal feed and eat animals as normal. Then plenty of grains for everyone.
Not that it needs such interference. The price of stuff does it well enough without the need for legislation. If you can produce enough protein rich meal from bugs at less cost than it would take to grow it then off you go.
Did the study cover such things as: How does it taste? OR How willing are people going to be eating bugs?
I’ll guess that the most important questions are ignored.
Giant Insects.
Great Idea !
Not !
Certainly not my cup of tea! But if this catches on, I wonder how long it will take before Polly “ecocide” Higgins begins lobbying for UN action against “insecticide” 😉
OK BFL I’ll try to look at the positive side of consuming bugs – if I’m starving. 😉
On the bright side if this resulted in the lord of the fruit flies a.k.a David Suzuki, being let go due to shortage of work I could be convinced sooner perhaps.
Yes, we as well are guilty of that full fridge – nothing to eat syndrom, I often say, we need a varsity team to sail through our fridge once a week as our small dog can’t possibly eat all the good left overs. Hubby comes from a big family of boys in sports, he’s working on not purchasing/cooking like were feeding a hockey team every night.
re: alan says:
January 10, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Matthew 3:4 about John the Baptist:
“His meat was locusts and wild honey.”
The “locusts” mentioned in this quote are locust beans – better known as carob.
Lobsters are basically large sea grasshoppers and abalone are snails. Yet both of these products are expensive delicacies.
Odd how much opposition there is to genetic engineering, yet “in-vitro meat” is being developed. Surely one is just as bizarre as the other?
Strange world we live in.
“Bugs” can be very tasty, prepared properly. Honey roasted locusts are tasty indeed. So are roasted grub worms. King crab are giant spiders of the sea. A lot is in the preparation and presentation, and of course in the label. Tagging with a French or other foreign label works wonders. Removing the distress causing parts is essential for American consumption.