The role of edible insects in cutting harmful emissions.

The role of edible insects in cutting harmful emissions has been explored severally with different angles and recommendations after the study. A recent research at the university of Edinburgh has added another angle to the study as it has highlighted that eating insects,instead of beef could help reduce the emission linked to livestock. The study showed that by replacing half of the meat eaten worldwide with cricket.meal worms,lab grown meat or imitation meat it will reduce the use of farmland by one third and consequently reduce greenhouse gases. The team also looked at the possibility of using insects in pre-packaged foods. The scientist used data collected by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and compared the environmental impacts of conventional meat production with those of alternative sources of food. The team at the University of Edinburgh and Scotland's Rural College considered a scenario in which half of the current mix of animal products is replaced by insects, lab-grown meat or imitation meat and found that insects and imitation meat such as soybean-based foods e.g tofu are the most sustainable as they require the least land and energy to produce. The research, published in the journal Global Food Security shows that if global consumption of animal products is reduced by half by eating substitutes such as more insects or imitation meat it will make 1680 million hectares of land available(free) which is equivalent to 70 times the size of the UK. The research further showed that more land could be freed up/saved if the there is a switch from the current animal protein mix to diet with more chicken and eggs as the land needed for production was only marginally higher than that required for insects and imitation meat.