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Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup

Insect farming means we are going to eat more meat, not less

    • Those hoping that human entomophagy will lead to more sustainable global food systems should be careful what they wish for.
    • Those hoping that human entomophagy will lead to more sustainable global food systems should be careful what they wish for. PHOTO: REUTERS
    Published Tue, Mar 5, 2024 · 11:44 AM

    NO DYSTOPIAN picture of a climate-ruined planet is complete until you’ve been put off your lunch.

    Whether it’s the grubs farmed by Dave Bautista in Blade Runner: 2049 or Charlton Heston in Soylent Green yelling that food is being made from “people”, there are few things that provoke as visceral a reaction as the prospect of an ecological disaster forcing you to eat something gross.

    It is hardly surprising, then, if we are regularly promised a future of Blade Runner-style protein farms, where insect larvae are bred en masse for human consumption. “STOP insect-flour-based foods in school canteens,” Italy’s deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini wrote in an X posting last month, echoing a trope that’s found currency among the country’s farm protestors.

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