Grubbing Around: What If the Bugs We Spray Could Feed Us?

(Inspired by Grub: Eating Bugs to Save the Planet, by Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, August 15 & 22, 2011)

Literary Reflection

The idea of eating insects lands somewhere between revulsion and revelation. In many parts of the world—Thailand’s night markets, Oaxaca’s spice-red chapulines, Ghana’s roasted palm weevils—it’s ordinary fare. Yet in the West, bugs remain villains: pests to be sprayed, swatted, and eradicated. Dana Goodyear’s New Yorker piece captured that cultural tension just as the modern entomophagy movement began to stir, chronicling chefs, scientists, and entrepreneurs who asked a subversive question: What if the creatures we’re exterminating could actually feed us? The numbers alone make the case. Each year, Americans spend on the order of $12 billion annually—mostly to control species that, ironically, could be harvested as protein. Globally, the economic losses from insect crop damage exceed tens of billions of dollars annually, not counting the collateral damage from pesticide runoff, pollinator decline, and soil depletion. Meanwhile, livestock—the protein source insects could partially replace—consume staggering resources: roughly 77% of global agricultural land and produce about 14% of all greenhouse-gas emissions. A single pound of crickets is several to ten times more efficient, depending on the metric, than needed to produce a pound of beef. If even 10% of the world’s meat consumption were replaced by insect protein, the savings could free up land equivalent to the size of India, reduce methane emissions by tens of millions of tons per year, and save billions of gallons of freshwater. Economically, that substitution could offset tens of billions in annual feed, fertilizer, and water costs—and open new revenue streams for rural economies already experimenting with mealworm farms and black-soldier-fly composting. But the deeper question, and Goodyear’s real insight, was cultural. Why does disgust attach so powerfully to one protein source and not another? A lobster—once considered the “cockroach of the sea”—rose from prisoner food to gourmet delicacy within two generations. The same shift could happen with crickets, mealworms, or grasshoppers if perception catches up with ecological sense. Our aversion has less to do with biology than with narrative. Western culture cast insects as symbols of decay and contagion, not nourishment. Yet every system has its unseen connectors, and in ecosystems insects are the connectors: recyclers, pollinators, decomposers—the invisible workforce that turns waste into fertility. To eat them may simply be to acknowledge a truth already embedded in nature’s design: that life feeds on life in endlessly efficient loops.

Systems-Level Context

Turning insects into food is not just a culinary experiment—it’s an act of systems redesign. It reroutes energy, water, and nutrient flows that have long run inefficiently through the global food economy. 1. Resource Efficiency and Carbon Footprint: Crickets and mealworms convert feed into protein about twelve times more efficiently than cattle. They thrive on organic by-products—fruit peels, coffee grounds, even brewery waste—transforming what would otherwise be landfill methane into edible biomass. Life-cycle analyses show that farming one kilogram of edible cricket protein produces about 2 kg of CO₂-equivalent, compared with 60 kg for beef. Substituting insect protein for even five percent of global livestock output could cut agricultural emissions by nearly 300 million metric tons of CO₂-equivalent per year—roughly the annual output of Spain. 2. Land and Water Savings: Insects need almost no land for grazing, can be farmed vertically, and require over 95 percent less water than traditional livestock. If large-scale insect protein replaced ten percent of conventional meat, global cropland devoted to feed could shrink by more than 100 million hectares, restoring vast tracts to forest or regenerative agriculture. That land-use reversal could sequester hundreds of millions of tons of carbon annually and rebuild biodiversity corridors now fragmented by monoculture. 3. Economic Implications: The United Nations has estimated that shifting toward insect protein could reduce global feed and fertilizer costs by $40 billion per year, while lowering household food insecurity in developing nations. Entrepreneurs in Kenya, Vietnam, and the United States are already scaling “micro-livestock” operations that employ local labor and generate feedstock for fish, poultry, and pets. In Europe, the insect-protein industry is projected to surpass $9 billion by 2030. 4. Pest Control Reframed: Each year, municipalities and homeowners in the United States spend on the order of $12 billion annually—mosquito fogging, termite treatments, cockroach control—while those same species represent vast, untapped nutrient sources. Redirecting even a fraction of that spending toward controlled insect harvesting or farming could create a dual dividend: fewer harmful pesticides released into the environment and new protein for food or feed. 5. Hidden Savings in Protein Substitution: Producing one kilogram of edible beef protein emits roughly 60 kg of CO₂-equivalent and consumes 15,000 liters of water; the same amount of cricket protein emits about 2 kg of CO₂ and uses less than 2,000 liters. Global meat production costs exceed $1 trillion annually, including subsidies, feed, and environmental externalities. Replacing just ten percent of that output with insect protein could save around $100 billion in direct and indirect costs while sharply reducing emissions. In other words, eating bugs isn’t a novelty—it’s an efficiency revolution disguised as dinner. The very creatures that nibble our crops could, with reframed perception and industrial hygiene, help feed us while repairing ecological damage.

Cultural Shift and Unintended Consequences

Insect cuisine’s future may depend less on technology than on psychology. The barrier isn’t supply—it’s story. The same grasshopper that’s a snack in Oaxaca becomes a pest in Iowa. Yet attitudes can pivot quickly when culture and commerce align. Once sushi crossed the West’s disgust threshold, it became a billion-dollar industry within a decade. The same pattern is now unfolding in the edible-insect world, where branding, storytelling, and normalization may prove as decisive as nutrition. Our aversion to insects is deeply learned, not innate. Evolution may have primed us to avoid rot and contamination, but marketing solidified the taboo. Pesticide ads in the twentieth century cast bugs as miniature villains—the enemy of hygiene and prosperity. That narrative lingers in Western consciousness, shaping public policy as much as consumer taste. Shifting perception means reframing insects from contamination to contribution, from nuisance to nutrient. Scaling any new protein source brings new complexities. Insects can trigger shellfish-like allergies, and the hygienic standards for mass farming still vary widely. If the sector expands without strong oversight, the ecological irony could be grim: a “green” industry causing new pollution or disease vectors. Regulation and transparency must therefore evolve alongside acceptance. The European Union, for instance, now requires full traceability and contamination controls for all insect-based food products—a model worth emulating. A cautionary tale shadows every sustainability boom: success invites industrialization, which risks erasing the virtues that made the idea sustainable in the first place. The rush to produce insect protein at scale could strain ecosystems if wild populations are overharvested or genetic monocultures replace local diversity. Already, some start-ups are patenting proprietary cricket strains, turning a once-open ecological resource into intellectual property. Entomophagy invites moral paradoxes. We valorize it as an ethical alternative to factory-farmed mammals, yet insects are complex organisms with rudimentary nervous systems and stress responses. If we justify eating them purely because they are small or alien, we risk replicating the same moral blind spots that justified previous exploitations of life deemed “lesser.” The challenge, as always, is to widen our empathy while staying grounded in practical ecology. Dana Goodyear’s article spotlighted early cultural intermediaries—chefs like David George Gordon, the “Bug Chef,” and researchers at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization who saw insects as a bridge between tradition and modern sustainability. Today, their successors are pop-up restaurateurs, school educators, and sustainability influencers who frame bug-eating as both adventurous and responsible. The more children taste roasted crickets at a science fair or protein bars made from mealworm flour, the faster disgust yields to curiosity. Ultimately, the question isn’t whether we’ll eat bugs—it’s how we’ll tell the story of doing so.

Sidebar: By the Numbers

Global Pest Control Spending: Well over $10 billion annually in the U.S. alone to kill insects—roughly 10× more than all federal spending on pollinator conservation. Crop Damage by Insects: Insect pests estimated in the tens of billions of dollars each year, excluding downstream effects of pesticide use on soil and water. Protein Conversion Efficiency: To produce one kilogram of edible protein: Beef: 25 kg feed, 15,000 liters water Pork: 9 kg feed, 6,000 liters water Chicken: 4.5 kg feed, 4,300 liters water Crickets: 2 kg feed, <2,000 liters water Carbon Emissions per Kilogram of Protein:

Beef: 60 kg CO₂-eq | Pork: 24 | Chicken: 6 | Crickets: 2 Potential Global Impact: Replacing just 10% of conventional meat with insect protein could save 100 million hectares of farmland (about the land area of India), reduce CO₂ emissions by 300 million metric tons per year (roughly Spain’s annual output), save billions of gallons of freshwater, and lower global feed and fertilizer costs by $40 billion annually. Market Growth: The edible-insect industry is projected to reach $9 billion worldwide by 2030. Waste Reuse Potential: Up to 25% of global food waste could serve as substrate for insect farming, transforming discarded organics into high-value protein and compost.

Systems Reflection & Conclusion

Insects are not the future of food—they’re a reminder that the future depends on rediscovering the intelligence of the past...

It’s Hard to Keep Score—Even with a Scorecard

One of the challenges in sustainability science is that the numbers don’t always line up neatly. For example, some studies claim that farming one ton of edible crickets releases only 1 kilogram of greenhouse gases, while others estimate about 2 kilograms of CO₂ per kilogram of edible protein. Both can be accurate depending on how the system boundary is drawn—whether emissions are counted per ton of live weight, per kilogram of edible meat, or across the entire life-cycle including feed and transport.

A similar confusion arises with feed conversion ratios (FCRs)—the amount of feed required to produce a given amount of animal mass. The question is: a kilogram of what?

• Per kilogram of live weight: measures the entire animal, including bones and inedible parts.
• Per kilogram of edible meat: subtracts inedible waste, showing how much feed goes into what we actually eat.
• Per kilogram of edible protein: adjusts again for water content and protein density, offering a biochemical comparison across species.

Each metric is valid within its own context, but they’re not interchangeable. A report saying it takes “25 kilograms of feed to make one kilogram of beef” may refer to edible meat, while another showing “60 kilograms” may mean edible protein. Meanwhile, crickets might score 2 kilograms per kilogram of edible mass, or 5–10 kilograms per kilogram of protein—depending on how finely the math is sliced.

This isn’t a flaw in the data; it’s a reminder that complex systems resist single-number summaries. The outcome depends on where you draw the boundary lines and what you choose to count. The same is true when measuring water footprints, carbon intensity, or biodiversity loss: the totals vary with perspective.

For classrooms, that’s the real lesson. Numbers carry authority, but context gives them meaning. To “keep score” responsibly, students must learn to ask:

• What’s being measured, and what’s being left out?
• Who benefits from framing the data this way?
• How would the picture change if we counted something else?

Systems thinking begins not with finding the right number, but with understanding how numbers are made.

Classroom Prompts and Discussion Questions

• Cultural Shifts: Why do you think people in some cultures eat insects regularly, while others find the idea repulsive? How do marketing and tradition shape these attitudes?
• Systems Thinking: In what ways could insect farming reduce environmental stress on land, water, and climate systems? What trade-offs or new problems might arise if the practice becomes widespread?
• Economics of Sustainability: Imagine that ten percent of the world’s meat consumption was replaced by insect protein. How might that affect global food prices, employment in agriculture, and climate policies?
• Moral and Ethical Questions: Do insects deserve ethical consideration as living beings, or are they simply part of nature’s resource cycle? How might our answers influence policy and personal behavior?
• Data and Uncertainty: What does the section It’s Hard to Keep Score—Even with a Scorecard teach us about interpreting scientific data? How should we handle seemingly conflicting information when both sides may be correct within different boundaries?
• Innovation and Communication: What strategies could educators, chefs, or entrepreneurs use to make insect-based foods more appealing? Are there examples of other once-taboo foods that became mainstream?
• Local Applications: How could schools, community gardens, or local farms integrate insect farming into sustainability education or food programs?

Sources (Annotated)

Goodyear, Dana. “Grub: Eating Bugs to Save the Planet.” The New Yorker, Aug 15 & 22, 2011. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/15/grub

FAO (2013). Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security. https://www.fao.org/3/i3253e/i3253e.pdf

Van Huis, Arnold et al. (2015). Journal of Insects as Food and Feed. https://www.wur.nl/en/publication-details.htm?publicationId=publication-way%3A2064

World Economic Forum (2020). https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/why-eating-insects-makes-sense-for-the-environment/

Oonincx et al. (2010). PLOS ONE. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0011440

Yen, Alan L. (2012). American Entomologist. https://academic.oup.com/ae/article/58/2/75/2386417

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