If we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects
Insects are not a solution despite already being used today.  Strawberry flavored ice-cream anyone?  Yeah that&#x27;s beetles.  And some peptides from insects are used in modern medicine.  But willingly switch from energy dense meats to insects?  Not until there are no other options and even then the insect option will be short lived when we that far into trouble.<p>Insects may be in a distant dystopian future where governments&#x2F;people paralyze themselves into inaction and don&#x27;t act to improve water storage and delivery.  Even then it would be a short term solution because when the water is gone, the people are gone shortly thereafter.  Hopefully it doesn&#x27;t come to that.<p>Even if one believes insects would save the environment there would have to be peer reviewed studies done to show the environmental differences when we are talking about the scale of insect farms required to feed a nation or world.  A few insect farms are not going to have the same impact as replacing all meat farms with the size and quantity of insect farms to meet the caloric and amino-acid replacement requirements.  That is something else that would need many studies of course.  Vitamin, mineral, collagen and other proteins, specific EAA&#x2F;BCAA amino-acid profiles, and quantity of insects required to meet those replacement needs.  Not all proteins are equal in protein and fat content.  Fat is required to release bile from the gallbladder.  This means finding the right balance of insects to get enough fat for bile release to break down proteins.  Fat is highly variable in different species of insects.  Insects would be introducing new bacterium into the human gut biome.  Scientists are barely beginning to understand the gut-brain axis what what bacterium have what downstream effects.  Some cultures already consume supplemental insects but their gut biome have evolved over a long period to handle this.  There would also need to be studies on the impact to the endocrine and immune systems.  Some people may have allergic and auto-immune reactions to specific bugs.  There may be changes to hormone levels, positive or negative.  Will the food packaging list the specific insects and quantity of each insect?  From the hygienic point of view it should be pointed out that some insects may produce or contain toxic bioactive compounds.  Each insect would need a toxicity profile and&#x2F;or those toxins would need to be isolated and removed from the final product.<p>Then there is the risk of cross contamination of insect farms and vegetable crop farms.  Putting certain insects near crops in large amounts are a high risk to those farm owners.  There would need to be regulations to prevent insect swarms escaping and destroying crops in their migratory path.  Insects must not be introduced into a state that primarily contains farms with the foods those insects would consume.