Well the point is that animals are fed grains which is a relatively "inefficient" way of making food. It takes like a 5:1 ratio or something similar .
Its not that much more efficient than chicken . I will not eat the bugs nor live in a pod.
Idk where the meme comes from either. The efficiency benefits of eating crickets vs chicken don't necessarily come from feed to flesh conversation ratios.
https://exoprotein.com/blogs/blog/crickets-vs-chicken-we-re-missing-the-pointA lot has been made of a
recent study by two UC Davis researchers, published in the journal PLOS ONE. The study, based on raising crickets on various feeds, shows two things:
- Crickets fed a given weight of poultry feed produce slightly more protein than chickens do.
- Crickets fed a given weight of concentrated food waste produce significantly less protein than chickens fed the same weight of poultry feed.
Beyond the environmental benefits of saving energy, water, and food, cricket farms are far more flexible. A cricket farm producing tons of protein per day can be sited in a big city; there’s no noise or smell, so you wouldn’t even know it’s there. This means all the benefits of local farming: fewer food miles, fresher produce and less food waste.
Incidentally, a shed full of chickens produces huge amounts of manure. Runoff from chicken farms pollutes groundwater, rivers, and the sea. Instead of manure, crickets produce “frass”. It’s dry and clean, and it doesn’t smell. It works great as fertilizer, too.
When chickens are fully grown, they’re driven to a slaughterhouse. They’re killed, butchered and processed, then transported by refrigerated truck to wherever they’re eaten. The process is dirty, expensive, and inhumane, generating carbon dioxide and huge amounts of waste.
For crickets, harvesting is much more simple. They’re cooled until their metabolism stops, then dehydrated and ground into flour. Once dehydrated, they’re like jerky: they stay fresh at room temperature and don’t require refrigeration. Unlike chickens, the whole body is used, so there’s almost zero waste.
So, in addition to being better at eating poultry food than chickens are, crickets use far less energy and water, generate minimal pollution and can be raised and processed close to where they’re used. Beyond protein conversion efficiency, these are huge arguments for why crickets are a sustainable crop.
