Essay by Eric Worrall
But you have to dig through pages of “alternative protein”, “rewilding” and “legume protein” before getting to the bugs.
As severe drought hits, the UK’s food system faces crisis – here’s how to change that
Published: August 10, 2026 11.30pm AEST
Neil Ward
Professor of Rural and Regional Development at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East AngliaThe UK is in the grip of a severe drought. England and Wales received only 9-10% of their normal rainfall in July, and for England it was the driest July since records began in 1836. A fifth heatwave has just been forecast. This is the shape of things to come and is what climate scientists have long predicted.
The drought’s length and severity are affecting UK agriculture and food production. This follows other shocks to the system, such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, that have already fuelled food price inflation. Impacts are now front page news. Crucially, concern is shifting from cost alone to the security of food supply. Inflation hits the poorest people hardest but supply disruption can affect everyone.
…
Last year, I spent many months with colleagues developing a Roadmap for Resilience for the UK food system. Our starting point was that significant change is inevitable. Adapting to climate change and bolstering resilience against international threats and disruption means that struggling on with business-as-usual is no longer a viable option. On top of that, our diets are fuelling poor public health, straining NHS resources and dragging down UK productivity through diet-related worklessness (unemployment or sick leave). Meanwhile, our systems of production have been eroding biodiversity and polluting rivers and waterways.
Our roadmap highlights three key transformations: to make food production more resilient by changing what we grow and production systems, to be smarter in our use of land to produce food alongside adapting to climate change and reducing net emissions, and to make healthier diets more accessible and affordable. The UK has enough land and agricultural resources to avoid greater import dependence and boost national resilience and self-sufficiency. Crucially, this magnitude of change would require a long-term plan over a 25-year period, and a commitment to addressing these three transformational changes together.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/as-severe-drought-hits-the-uks-food-system-faces-crisis-heres-how-to-change-that-289417
…
Reading through the “Roadmap for Resilience“, they talk a lot about diverting more agricultural land to rewilding, and replacing animal protein with protein extracted from legumes.
Both propositions are absurd. Diverting agricultural land to unproductive uses in the middle of a food production crisis is a sure way to make the food crisis worse. Legumes can be grown all the way up to Scotland, but older people whose diets are dominated by vegetable protein suffer significant health complications.
Given all the talk of bean protein, where is the insect reference? The code phrase is “alternative protein” and “novel protein”. And the one clear reference to insect protein which somehow got left in the roadmap report.
That study “Scoping the potential of insect protein in university student diets in the UK” is published on root and reason’s old website (Roadmap for Resilience is published on their new website):
Scoping the potential of insect protein in university student diets in the UK
The project will investigate the affordability, sustainability, and nutritional quality of insect protein-based diets compared to alternative protein diets. Main meals and a dessert option will be developed using mealworms and crickets. Students will be invited to a tasting session of the insect recipes against their equivalent dessert or protein alternative and will complete a survey rating the recipes. Students will be aware of the purpose of the study and that at least one of the recipes contains insects but will not be informed which contains insects. The project will highlight the potential of insect proteins as an affordable and sustainable diet for university students.
Project lead: Stephen Axon (Bournemouth University)
Project collaborators: Bugvita (C.F. Banks Limited), Fern Baker (Bournemouth University), Frank Vriesekoop (Harper Adams University), Jane Eastham (Harper Adams University), James Fair (Bournemouth University), Rounaq Nayak (Bournemouth University)
Findings
1. A clear disgust factor exists when considering insect proteins
2. More nuanced, this disgust factor first applies to aesthetics and then secondly regarding taste
3. A distinction between whole-insects and ground-insects included in recipes is clearly demarcated
4. Ground-insect deserts were more popular than savoury recipesSuggestions for further research
Future research ideally needs to be focused on explicating the disgust factor regarding insect proteins more clearly. There are many examples whereby insect proteins can act as a nutritional and less carbon intensive food supply yet acceptability remains the largest barrier. Consequently, future research needs to be conducted in broader population acceptability.
Source: https://www.agrifood4netzero.net/funding/funded-projects/funded-scoping-study-projects/scoping-the-potential-of-insect-protein-in-university-student-diets-in-the-uk/
The insect protein advocates haven’t gone away, they’re just being less open about their plans for your meal table. And they have no problem rewilding away productive agricultural land, knowing this will make food price spikes worse, which could leave many people with no alternative other than to do things they would never have accepted in more prosperous times.
What Britain needs is more reservoirs. Extreme dry spells are unusual in Britain but hardly unprecedented – Western Europe, Ireland and Britain suffered a series of extreme crop failures and droughts in the late 1400s, during the Little Ice Age. But droughts can be mitigated – capturing more of the heavy rainfall which fell earlier this year in Britain would have ensured plenty of water to carry farmers through this dry patch. But for some reason the people who run Britain would rather build wind turbines and make excuses than build water reservoirs.
Covering prime farm land with wind and solar energy systems isn’t helping much with a food crisis.
“Future research ideally needs to be focused on explicating the disgust factor regarding insect proteins more clearly.”
Here is DAVE’s more clearly explicated disgust factor for free: “The idea is repulsive. The taste is terrible. Summary: YUCK.”
That is all for now.
How about escargot?
Never had it. Likely never will. (I did have squid once. The guy who cooked it didn’t tell me what it was. I think my leather belt would have been better. Maybe he messed it up.)
Maybe it taste great but I suspect it might fall into that category where only connoisseurs will say they actually like it because it’s expensive.
I could be be wrong.
Guy messed the squid up. Go to any good Italian restaurant and order calamari as an appetizer. Calamari is Italian for small squid.
I figured he did mess it up. He wanted to be a chef and I was his guinea pig. (Who would order something that was tougher to chew than jerky?)
Some this is about personal taste.
My wife loves brussels sprouts. I think they came after The Fall. (Thorns, thistles and brussels sprouts 😎 )
But, she doesn’t make me eat them. And she’s loving enough to not cook them for herself while I’m still in the house. 😎
I was raised to eat brussels sprouts. Boiled and buttered.
A couple of years ago I was turned onto broiled sprouts.
Those are good.
If you like caviar you’ll love stingray flap. Mid 1960’s. The chap was from Melville Island. The ray, speared in shallow water near Darwin. Supper. Must admit I used a bunch of a..wipe next morning. (Can’t name the ‘chap’, he passed a few years later. I’ll mention “Jedda”. The only movie star I’ve ever met.)
Stingray flaps are a staple of many so-called “scallops”.
It is almost tasteless, the aromats (onion, garlic, chilli, herbs, peppers and spices) and the butter used by the chef make all the difference.
I could post my recipe for Greek calamari for you.
But then, I’d have to . . . .
I’m afraid it would give me sluggish digestion.
And frog’s legs? Never mind, only the French eat such things.
At our very rustic Ontario fishing cabin retreat, we used to hunt big bullfrogs in the marsh summer evenings. Very simple. Tie a small piece of red cloth just behind a medium hook on a stiff ice fishing pole with only about 6 feet of line. Dangle it in front of the frog, and bang, the frog does all the work. We would fry up the frogs legs for breakfast. Delicious. Other frog parts made good smallmouth bass bait.
Bullfrogs legs are delicious if cooked properly. I prefer battered and fried. The problem is that, outside of bullfrog season, the frog legs you get at a restaurant look like someone raided a kid’s aquarium.
I had frog legs once.
Supposed to taste like chicken?
Well, the tasted like bad pond water smells.
Escargot is delicious. Snails cooked in butter with garlic, served over toast. At our French cafe near us in Fort Lauderdale, the usual appetizer serving was six, still in the shells.
Cue that scene from Pretty Woman where she’s trying to get it out of the shell.
😎
I agree, snails and other mollusks (e.g. abalone, clams, oysters) can be quite tasty. On the other hand just about anything — even broccoli — cooked in garlic butter — is likely to taste pretty good. Healthy? Questionable.
Rocky Mountain oysters, maybe. Snails? Not just no, but …. no!
Had both, both good-if different. I’m with Rud on this .
Revise Biology 101 – snails are not insects; grasshoppers, lice and cockroaches are.
Simon can eat maggots.
We’d be better off if the maggots ate Simon and all the other Eco-Nazis.
I guess I was being too kind.
That would be called cannibalism?
Bugs and plants don’t contain the Castles factors of which there are two: the intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The extrinsic factor is vitamin B12. The intrinsic factor is a protein that facilitates the transport vitamin B12 from food across the small intestine mucosa into the blood. Animal protein meat such as beef, pork, and chicken contain these factors.
Everyday I take a multivitamin and minerals pill because I eat lots snacks such a cheese nib and Ritz crackers, Doritos, and potatoes chips. The later two I consider to be “vegetables”.
“Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup”!
“Oh – those cost extra.”
Waiter, what is a fly doing in my soup? —The backstroke.
Table patron: Waiter, there is fly in my soup.
Waiter: Worse than that, it is not wearing a jacket and a tie!
Waiter, there’s soup in my fly.
Sir, please keep your eyes off our waitress, and your hands on the table while you’re in our restaurant.
(not one of my jokes, sent by my niece 🙁 )
Pathogen Disgust Sensitivity (PDS) is a thing. Look it up.
The whole UK insect protein thing is and always was silly. The climate advocates ‘reason’ for not liking beef protein is that cattle produce methane, a GHG. Except only in a dry lab atmosphere, not the real world with about 2% average specific humidity. The two narrow frequency and very small amplitude methane IR absorption bands are completely overshadowed by two much wider frequency and much higher amplitude water vapor IR absorption bands.
The reason for this summer’s UK/EU drought is a persistent ‘omega block’ weather pattern lasting much longer than the usual~10 days. These are not uncommon, so the agricultural solution is indeed more water storage reservoirs. Won’t help with the Rhine and Danube shipping problems
Rud, I agree with you, but I suspect you are overthinking this somewhat. My reaction is that this is just typical academic socialist snobbery about hatred of all things pleasurable. This particularly includes food. The self-righteous are always infuriated by the notion that somewhere someone might be enjoying life.
You are probably right. And I confess to being a foodie who really enjoys cooking a wide range of things from many different cultures in my fancy custom kitchen.
Even have now gotten my daughter into ‘adventure cooking’ for her family in Colorado. After each ‘adventure, she makes them all vote on a 1-10 scale. Over 5, it stays as a keeper. 5 or under, never again for that adventure.
I’m good at boiling water. That’s about it. (OK. Toast with a good toaster.)
Glad you enjoy food and cooking. Whatever is fun and worth it to you is worth it.
“The climate advocates ‘reason’ for not liking beef protein is that cattle produce methane, a GHG.”
It might go deeper than that. The “Green” movement brought together divergent “anti-(fill in the blank)” groups under one banner.
Some of those groups were the Animal Rights groups and its even more extreme outliers.
Methane in the lab in a jar has an emission/absorption spectrum in the “greenhouse” range. In the atmosphere it is totally overshadowed by water and carbon dioxide and would be irrelevant even if it was rising.
However, it only lasts about 15 days from fart to gone – some oxidised in air and the rest dissolved in sea water, carried into the deep where it rains out into lakes on the ocean floor, gets covered in sediment and when much later the sediment is drilled, is collected as natural gas.
Methane has no absorption bands in the thermal emission band of IR light emanating from the earth’ surface. More importantly, there is very little methane in the air. At the Mauna Loa Obs. in Hawaii, the concentration of methane in dry air is currently 1.94 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has a mass of 1,290 grams and contains a mere 1.4 milligrams of methane at STP. This small of methane can have no effect on the earth’s atmosphere.
The methane issue is also dishonest as it looks at only one step in a larger cycle. The methane that is released by ruminant animals comes from the digestion of plant matter by bacteria. The carbon for the methane comes from the sugars in the plants. The carbon for the sugars in the plants comes from … atmospheric CO2… the atmospheric CO2 comes from (among other things) the biodegradation of plant matter and the breakdown of methane in the atmosphere into water and CO2. It’s a cycle, no excess carbon is produced by ruminant animals, it is only transformed and moved around.
Methane is an inconsequential non-issue.
What about those university students being used as guinea pigs in this research? Are they getting paid to eat bugs? I am not sure there is enough money to get me to do the same…
Fun fact! Guinea pigs, known as cuy in South America, are used by some as meat.
There’s your disgust factor for you.
Well if “rewilding” is a goal, they can start by tearing down all the worse-than-useless wind and solar “farms.” They can all be replaced by a relatively small number of coal plants occupying a very tiny fraction of the land occupied by that wind and solar crap.
“The project will investigate the affordability, sustainability, and nutritional quality of insect protein-based diets compared to alternative protein diets. Main meals and a dessert option will be developed using mealworms and crickets.”
You first, professor. Here’s a spoon; dig right in. These socialist twits always want to inflict some combination of pain, discomfort or disgust on the long-suffering masses they claim to be helping. His professional biography reads as expected. It’s four paragraphs of utter uselessness. Has he ever actually done any farming? Ho ho; not a bit.
Neil Ward – Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
What climate change? About 80% of the earth’s climate is water, ice and snow. I haven’t read any reports about “climate change” in the vast Pacific Ocean.
Is that what they serve the Chinese trade delegation? I think not.
Lobsters and Alaska king crabs are really big giant bugs. Nevertheless they are pretty tasty.
I’m with you. On a lesser scale, they call crawfish “mud bugs” in Louisiana.
and “lobbies” in Australia.
(well, some States)
crawdads
crabs
crayfish
Depends on where you live.
Drowned in butter.
“story tip”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/massive-victory-against-climate-cult-fifth-circuit-shuts/
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday delivered another stinging rebuke to the Biden-era Department of Energy’s war on American appliances, setting aside energy efficiency standards for stoves and cooktops.
My former home in Sarasota had solar panels on the roof to heat the pool (they were there already when I bought the home). The solar system was useless, it could only raise the water temp maybe 5°F max, but squirrels would occasionally chew on the lines requiring repairs. Then the clincher was the roof started leaking under one of the attachment points. Cost 8k to repair that section of roof. I told the roofer to toss the solar system in the dumpster. Never again, no matter how good the incentives.
“Diverting agricultural land to unproductive uses in the middle of a food production crisis is a sure way to make the food crisis worse.”
Not to mention that agricultural depletion (if that is indeed what this is about) will further exacerbate wildfires by encouraging the accumulation of fuel.
“[…] but older people whose diets are dominated by vegetable protein suffer significant health complications.”
That is not a problem for eco-Malthusians. Quite the opposite, in fact: the sooner the planet-destroying “boomers” make way for others, the better…
Lobsters, shrimp, crayfish and crabs are all insects. Insects have been eaten for hundreds of thousands of years by humans
Those are all crustaceans, both arthropods. Insects are very rare in the ocean where salt and size helps taste and some problem insects make into brackish water. It’s probably because of competition and evolutionary history.
But we love eating lobsters but westerners have a phobia about “bugs”. Yet, as you say, they are in the same phylum.
Yes, a lot of arthropods can be delicious. But not necessarily cheap. Around here, live lobsters go for $10 a lb and up depending on the season. And that for a critter that is largely shell and inedible guts.
And apparently not all Crustacea are equally delicious. I once read of a paleontologist who ordered horseshoe crab for dinner someplace in SouthEast Asia because it was on the menu. Horseshoe crabs are thought to be the closest surviving relatives of the extinct trilobites. After the meal he remarked that he now doubted that the Trilobita had died out thru predation.
My point is that some, not all, bugs taste great
I couldn’t resist researching your comment. True, BUT.
Insects are a subphylum of the megaphylum PanCrustacia, which evolved during or just after the Cambrian explosion about 520mya. ‘True’ insects emerged in the fossil record about 480 mya—true defined as land rather than sea based. The then similarity (which remains) is compound eyes. The difference is air/ocean.
Interesting aside. The ‘Intelligent design’ eye argument for ‘GOD’ is biologically false. True eyes evolved in three different ways in roughly the same time frame during or just after the Cambrian explosion, along with the evolution of ‘hard’ body parts enabling first definitive fossilization. Once as compound multilens eyes in all pancrustaisians. Then a second time in what were likely their high light ‘shallow’ predators that evolved into all vertebrates as a single lens with blood vessels in front of retina (so now human macular degeneration), and then yet a third time in what became modern cephalopods (single lens, blood vessels behind retina likely enabling better low light deep predation). To this day, all ocean crustaceans are still caught in relatively light filled shallow water(e.g. shrimp), all fish have evolved to feed at depth but are mostly caught shallow (e.g. bluefin tuna), and all cephalopods range from very deep to shallow, but mostly caught (e.g. squid) shallow for cost reasons.
Are PanCrustacia the ones you can cook up in a pan with lots of butter?
Thank you for educating me on this. My effort was to help people who have an automatic revulsion to the thought of eating “bugs”. Both are Arthropoda. And as I said, humans have and still do, just not in most Western countries.
Check Invertebrates. A vast number of these are insects, a vast number are not.
That doesn’t make my point wrong. Not eating bugs is European phobia.
Breeding and harvesting insects in vast quantities without energy and raw materials and production and processing and transport costs would be unlikely to reduce the “carbon footprint” of human nutrition.
Vast areas of marginal land, never fit for crops, grows food for ruminant animals.
Cows, sheep, goats and buffalo make first-class protein out of the growth in the fields and fertilise the ground while doing so.
“without energy and raw materials and production and processing and transport costs would be unlikely to reduce the “carbon footprint” of human nutrition.”? You do not support your conclusion. I am not concerned with carbon footprint. I am concerned with good and sufficient protein for everyone.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190103-the-business-of-eating-bugs
“They’re a rich source of protein and use a fraction of the resources of beef or poultry
Insects can offer as much protein as animals when produced on a large enough scale, but need far fewer natural resources than beef, pork or poultry production and also emit a fraction of the greenhouse gases.
BBC are ignorant agenda-driven “journalists.” In tropical regions, bugs, worms, larva, and such sometimes are eaten as supplemental foods or delicacies, but they do not form the foundation of the dietary needs in those regions. The often quoted figure that 2 billion people eat bugs already is not supported upon further research. Likely number of people eating bugs is about 1/10 of that. Furthermore, the BBC did not research the literature on life cycle assessment (LCA) of industrial scale bug production that would be necessary to replace traditional meats. Under ideal circumstances, the energy and nutrient requirements for bug production are no better than chicken production. At scale and in temperate regions, the environmental impacts of industrial scale bug production are likely to be worse than those of conventional meat production (I.e., beef, pork, chicken, mutton, goat). Idealistic statements that resurface frequently about eating bugs are, in fact poorly supported in the literature. Real world business experience has borne this out as bugs-for-food businesses have repeatedly failed and gone bankrupt, and not simply because people don’t like the idea of eating bugs.
“In addition to this there is the horrible — the really disquieting — prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words “Socialism” and “Communism” draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, “Nature Cure” quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.”
George Orwell
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier
I am not concerned with what university professors, news media or politicians say about the conditions in the British Isles. I want to know how much precipitation have they received and did they make the best use of that precipitation?
During the siege of Leningrad (1941-44) food shortages became so acute that to survive residents resorted to eating rats to the point that the rodents were temporarily eliminated from the city. Once caught, they were boiled, the skin peeled off, eviscerated, and finally roasted. Those who ate them admitted that when they were hungry enough, they didn’t taste all that bad. During that siege cannibalism was practiced too, but the authorities passed a strict rule that anyone caught was to be summarily executed, so that kept the tendency in check. Maybe insects might suffice if normal food sources become scarce enough , but I’d like to see whether the proponents of the practice were eating them too before I’d start.
They seem to be really intent on getting the masses to eat bugs for some reason.
Don’t eat ze bugz!
Just on the theory that we decided to shift our diets to eating insects, all production agriculture would have to be shifted towards insect production to generate enough calories to feed the population. I have never seen anyone who suggested eating insects demonstrate the scale up that would have to occur to feed everyone. The bug advocates seem to operate on the long-disproven proposition of “spontaneous generation.”
What would it be like to live in a world where dense clouds of insects was the norm?
We would change from Eloi to Morlocks just to be able to breathe..
From a Google AI overview:
“Bugs and insects are highly nutritious food sources. Known scientifically as entomophagy, consuming insects provides a nutrient-dense alternative to traditional livestock. Over 2 billion people globally eat them daily due to their exceptional macro and micronutrient profiles.
Key Nutritional Benefits:
High-Quality Protein: Insects consist of 30% to 85% protein by dry weight and contain all nine essential amino acids.
Essential Minerals: Many species boast more bioavailable iron than beef and more calcium than milk.
Healthy Fats: They are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, including omega-3 and omega-6.
Vitamins: Insects are an excellent source of B vitamins, particularly vitamin B12.
Dietary Fibre: Their chitin-based exoskeletons provide prebiotic fibre that supports gut health.
Beyond direct nutrition, insect farming is highly sustainable. Crickets require six times less feed than cattle to produce the same amount of protein. They also use drastically less land and water.”
If you wish to live a long and healthy life, the nutritional value of the food you eat should be more important than the taste and appearance.
You first.
How can I be the first when:
“Over 2 billion people globally eat them daily due to their exceptional macro and micronutrient profiles.” ??
Nonsense. No indigenous tropical native eats bugs “due to their exceptional macro and micronutrient profiles.” If they had a choice, I suspect they would rather eat steak. Plus, the 2 billion figure is from one source that is greatly exaggerated. Most bug eating is in the tropics, is seasonal, and does not form a primary part of the diet. In some countries, certain bugs are eaten for more as a delicacy or for a traditional reason.
“Nonsense. No indigenous tropical native eats bugs “due to their exceptional macro and micronutrient profiles.”
Oh! I see! They eat bugs because they are so tasty. Nutritional value is of no concern.
When the natives of colonised countries switch to a Western diet, like the Maori in New Zealand, they tend to become very obese or overweight.
If one cannot get it into the mouth or into the stomach or into full digestion, regardless of the reason, one gets no nutrition.
I have no problem with bug diets.
I have major problems with government mandates that take away our freedoms, liberties, and rights (and money).
“I have no problem with bug diets.
I have major problems with government mandates that take away our freedoms, liberties, and rights (and money).”
Surely you’re not in favour of freedom to do harm to the environment, and freedom to produce junk food which is harmful to the general health of the population.
From the article:
“Adapting to climate change and bolstering resilience against international threats and disruption means that struggling on with business-as-usual is no longer a viable option. On top of that, our diets are fuelling poor public health, straining NHS resources and dragging down UK productivity through diet-related worklessness (unemployment or sick leave). Meanwhile, our systems of production have been eroding biodiversity and polluting rivers and waterways.
The project will investigate the affordability, sustainability, and nutritional quality of insect protein-based diets compared to alternative protein diets.”
You cannot take an AI first response as gospel, as it has not been trained properly, and it has a limited ability to do original analysis. For example, your 2 billion figure has been disproven. Furthermore, most people who advocate for bugs in the diet are agenda-driven, but they have never done or reviewed the lifecycle analysis of what it would take to gear up to industrial scale worldwide bugs-for-food production. Those who have done so have generally concluded that production is no better for the environment than traditional meats and may in fact be worse.
“For example, your 2 billion figure has been disproven.”
Disproven!! Show me the evidence. I think you mean, the 2 billion figure is just a rough estimate.
This is AI’s response to the issue.
“Because comprehensive survey data is lacking, scientists currently cannot provide an exact, accurate figure. While hundreds of millions of people across parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America absolutely do consume insects, grouping them all into a static “2 billion” bucket is viewed as a well-meaning guess rather than a verified scientific fact. “
That proposal has too many bugs.
I see many of my responses covered in other posts.