To Fight Global Warming, Eat Worms

February 4, 2013 - Mealworms are often used as bait, but now a team of researchers thinks people should eat them, too.

Two scientists at Wageningen University in the Netherlands are suggesting that one way to fight global warming is to start substituting mealworms for conventional animal proteins in people’s diet such as chicken, beef and dairy.

Dennis Oonincx and Imke de Boer wrote in the journal PLoS ONE that shifting eating habits globally away from raising livestock toward “lower-impact animal species” could help. Raising livestock requires 70 percent of agricultural land and contributes to 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

The researchers looked at the environmental impact of both mealworms and super worms, grown at a commercial mealworm producer in the Netherlands. They compared the results to those of conventional sources like milk, chicken and beef. Then they looked at global warming potential, fossil energy use and land use. They determined that the global warming potential of producing one kilogram of worms was 2.7 kilograms of CO2 equivalents — significantly lower than milk, chicken, pork and especially beef. Land use was also very low compared with traditional fare. 

Only when it came to energy use did the mealworms not perform as well. It takes more energy per kilogram of edible protein to produce mealworms than milk or chicken, and a similar amount to produce pork. Beef still surpasses worms on energy use, though.

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