Persuasive Essay On Insects

718 Words2 Pages

If you had a choice between a burger and a bowl of crickets, I think I would know which you choose to eat. As disturbing as this sounds, in the near future we may not have that choice. With our annual protein consumption rising, and Europe’s protein sources decreasing, coupled with a growing population, we may have only one alternative… Insects.

Firstly, for those of you who are worried about our rising population (nine billion people in 2050), you should know that currently, on the earth right now there are roughly 10 quintillion edible insects, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects. Now that’s a lot nutritious food. It’s not going to be easy to change this irrational fear, but to the rest of the world, we would be considered strange for NOT eating bugs. Around 80% of the world happily eats insects by choice, and they are all both nutritious and delicious. (That’s the insects not the people). Plus, they are naturally very rich in protein which would help resolve our protein drought in the up in coming future. For example mealworms are around 50%, red-legged locusts are 75% and leafcutter ants are around 58% protein, they are also high in iron and calcium which is excellent news to all the fitness fanatics out there.

But there is always bad news: gathering an insect meal from your garden to make a decent lunch is just too difficult. You would need too many of them to make up your calorie intake. Our colder climate produces very few bugs compared to hotter countries like Thailand and China. You are probably more likely to burn more calories hunting and digesting your lunch than you would get in return form eating it. But will we really need to hunt our own food?

Of course not, the solution is simple, insect farming. It won’t be...

... middle of paper ...

...s, Battenberg cake and lollipops.

If you are still unenthusiastic, I should tell you that even though you might have been eating boiled down and mixed pieces of insects, you might be interested to know that there is more to a loaf of bread besides wheat, flour and yeast. In the UK, each kilo of bread flour is allowed to contain insect ‘filth’ and over 1500 insect fragments. And honey? That’s multi-regurgitated bee vomit.

Now I know the thought of eating a bowl of insects for your lunch does not appeal to the most part of the UK. But without these changes in the future our eco system may not be able to support itself, and that is a severely disconcerting thought. Although we may be quite far away from this change, we must start the gradual progression into trying new and exotic foods to ease the country into this lifestyle. Besides, I hear they are quite tasty.

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