Will eating insects save the planet?

The Singapore Food Agency announced last month that it has approved 16 insect species as fit for human consumption.
The agency has permitted some species of beetle, locusts, grasshoppers and mealworms to be sold as food. These insects cannot simply be harvested from the wild. They must be “farmed in premises regulated by the Competent Authority”, according to the agency.
While entomophagy, the practice of eating insects, in many parts of the world remains gastronomic esotericism, Singapore is one of several countries that have begun to welcome it.
Indeed, in some parts of the world, insects are served up as popular street food. But do we all need to be switching our diets to include insects?
Some of the arguments for eating insects include:
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 60 percent of fish stocks worldwide are overfished.
Climate change is shifting our relationship with food and many believe insects are a viable, environmentally sustainable protein alternative to meat, given the high carbon footprint of livestock farming, which some peer-reviewed journals estimate produces 14.5 percent to 19.6 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2022, the World Economic Forum published a report incentivising eating bugs, citing climate change and the high protein content of insects as reasons.
But already in 2013, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization had proposed entomophagy as a solution to food insecurity.
It might bug you to know this, but, yes, in certain circumstances.
Different types of insects contain different amounts of nutrients, but they tend to be dense in protein, iron and calcium among other nutrients.
MightyCricket, a US-based website that sells cricket powder, says crickets contain 10 times more vitamin B12 than beef.
The Canada-based sports nutrition business Naak says 100g (3.5oz) of chopped beef steak contains about 20g of protein compared with 60g of protein that 100 grams of cricket steak contains.
A big reason for the rise in sentiment in favour of eating insects is down to the significantly low environmental footprint insects have.
The production of meat and dairy products accounts for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to an FAO report.
MightyCricket’s website says crickets use 50 to 90 percent less land per kilogramme of protein than conventional livestock.
According to the 2013 FAO report, producing 100g of beef steak creates 750g of greenhouse gases emissions. To produce 100g of crickets, the amount of emissions is estimated to be 100 times less.
The FAO data published in 2013 estimated two billion people consume insects globally.
While this number is often cited, an editorial in the Journal of Insects as Food and Feed said in 2021 that the number is an overstatement. Regardless, insects are an important part of a number of cuisines around the world:
While insects are already widely eaten in some countries around the world, they have never been a favourite among gourmets in the West. Despite this, some upscale restaurants are featuring insects on the menu:
The question of why people are put off by the idea of feasting on bugs opens several cans of worms: