'Yuck factor' still barrier in push to swap insects for meat in diets

Recent efforts to encourage people to eat insects are doomed to fail because of widespread public disgust at the idea, making it unlikely insects will help people switch from the environmentally ruinous habit of meat consumption, a new study has found.

- Oliver Milman

Farming and eating insects has been touted in recent years as a greener alternative to eating traditional meat due to the heavy environmental toll of raising livestock. Rearing livestock drives deforestation, is responsible for more than half of global water pollution, and may cause more than a third of all greenhouse gases that can be allowed if the world is to avoid disastrous climate change, the new research finds.

Despite this, the much lighter planetary cost of breeding and eating insects such as crickets, grasshoppers and ants is unlikely to be realised because people, particularly in western countries, remain repulsed at the idea of eating them, the researchers found.

Public polling in the US and Europe has found that while as many as 91% of respondents would be willing to try plant-based "alternative meats", only about 20% would consider eating insects.