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Guest Thinkers

Will Bugs Replace Beef?

Cattle and other livestock create tons of damaging greenhouse gases. There may be one environmentally friendly solution: eating bugs. But will anyone go for it?

Even when you consider how many insects you would need to equal the meat of a single pig or cow, the difference is enormous. For instance, a pig produces anywhere between ten and a hundred times as much greenhouse gases per kilogram as mealworms would. Ammonia emissions also seem to drop dramatically. Pigs create about ten times as much ammonia per kilogram as crickets do, and perhaps fifty times as much as locusts. Considering ammonia can wreak havoc on the acidity of groundwater, a big reduction like that could have tremendous benefits for the land as a whole.


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