Beating Hunger With Bug Bites

Even though we say the world is getting smaller and smaller, it isn’t because the earth is shrinking. It’s because the population is growing. Right now, in 2018, there are approximately 7.6 billion people on earth. Today alone at 12:00 PM, there have been over 205,000 births. Today alone. Can you imagine what those numbers look like, replicated over other days, months, and years?

By 2050, it’s estimated there will be somewhere around 9 billion people walking around. That means 1.5 billion more homes necessary, 1.5 billion cases of thirst to quench, and 1.5 billion more mouths to feed. There will come a time and a place when the world has become much too small, and us much too big.

According to CNBC, that time will come in 32 years. 32 years isn’t a long time, not when you think about our lifespans. The average lifespan is 71 years. For many of us, that means we’ll see 2050. What if it’s a time we don’t want to see? What if the damage we’ve done to our world is too great to bypass?

Cape Town is running out of water. It will be one of the first developed places to run out of water. How terrifying is that? How alarming is it that we haven’t begun tidal waves of relief efforts? More alarmingly still is the fact that we don’t have plans to create those tidal waves. And what happens next? Violence will erupt, and life as Cape Town knows it will cease to exist.

Another important question to ask isn’t who is next… but it’s what is next. And that is food shortage. By 2050, hungry mouths to feed are going to outnumber the pace of food production. And then what? This isn’t a new question, but it’s surely more imposing now than it has been in the past. We have 32 years to have an answer, but is that enough?

Day Zero looms mere months ahead. What happens when Day Zero isn’t referring to water anymore, but food?

There’s an answer but said answer may be buried beneath the dirt. At least, in some cases. The answer, for when Day Zero is referring to food, comes down to this: bugs. Unfortunately, that’s not so socially acceptable in some places.

Our culture dictates what we eat. Some places and some cultures are already comfortable eating bugs. Snails, crickets… they’re all pretty normal eats in some places. But the United States isn’t quite comfortable with that idea, yet. In 32 years, that might change.

One pest solution company has found another option than mere extermination. After examining different types of bugs, there were a lot of interesting insights that are encouraging in terms of food stability. One serving of cricket powder has the same amount of nutritional value of calcium as that of 100 services of pork.

Consider the mouths that cricket powder could satisfy while we conserve meat? That isn’t the only comparison that makes bugs interesting as a meal choice. Insects are far more efficient than livestock. You don’t have to worry about noxious gas coming out of an insect the way you do a cow.

Not only will bugs help save the world, but they’ll help create new jobs in rural areas that are in need of development. While Cape Town prays for rain, the rest of us should think about not-so-quietly asking for bugs.

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