STOP - Why Humans Should Never Eat Crickets
In recent years, big headlines have made a splash by declaring crickets the food of the future. But whether we’re ready for that is still a massive debate. On paper, insects could be a much more sustainable protein, consuming far less water while delivering just as many nutrients. But the logistics of getting crickets into the grocery store have a ton of issues, most of which have yet to be addressed.
In this article, we’ll talk about the current state of the debate about cricket protein, and the potential risks raised by mass producing crickets for human food.
The Buzz About Crickets
Insect protein is a pretty interesting idea. Insects consume significantly less water and resources than animal protein (especially cows, which require copious water and land). By comparison, insects can get by just fine on nutrient-rich grains and consume almost no water.
So far, the FDA has only approved the use of one insect as food (and food for animals, at that): the black soldier fly larva. As you probably know, we’re big fans of black soldier flies. But black soldier flies have special gut biomes that are exceptional in how efficiently they can break down hazardous materials.
When we talk about other insects, like crickets, there is a lot to consider beyond just the nutritional content and resource use involved in producing them.
And while it’s not uncommon for people in some countries to eat insects, part of the issue in bringing them to mass markets comes with mass production. Simply put: factory farming crickets is nothing like producing them on a small scale.
What We Don’t Know
But before we dive into the logistical issues of mass producing crickets for human food, let’s talk science. Because there’s a ton we just don’t know about crickets and the diseases they might be able to pass on to humans.
As of now, we know of at least one disease that can be spread by eating insects - Chagas Disease. Chagas is very scary, and can cause long-term organ damage.
But there is very little research out there on what diseases and parasites crickets might carry, and how they might be passed to humans.
In short, we just don’t know what kind of health issues might arise if millions of people were to suddenly start eating crickets. Before we know it’s safe, we need a whole lot more research.
Industry Regulations
Because the widespread use of insect protein is totally unprecedented, there are no industry standards on how to raise, feed, package, transport, cook, or store crickets. Every step in the process of producing, transporting, selling, cooking, and consuming other kinds of meat is regulated.
We have rules to prevent contamination and the spread of disease in our food, down to how it’s cooked. There’s a reason that sushi restaurants have to add an advisory that eating raw fish can be dangerous to their menus. We don’t think about these things because they’re so commonplace, but they’re essential to keeping a huge population from getting sick.
With crickets, none of those regulations exist. That’s partly because of the lack of research we mentioned above.
We haven’t established best practices for producing and handling insect protein. And until we can know how to produce crickets safely, we will be making potentially dangerous guesses.
Potential Risks of Mass Producing Crickets
Even with all the regulations we have in place for other meats, unexpected health concerns can still put huge numbers of people at risk.
Think about it. Even though the FDA and USDA regulate every aspect of food production, transport, and preparation, outbreaks of salmonella still affect our food every year.
Before it happened, it would have been almost impossible to predict the Mad Cow outbreak. We had no way of knowing that our practices for packaging meat could have created a whole new disease. And that’s with cows, animals that humans have been eating for over ten thousand years, animals that we had studied and regulated to the moon and back.
And while it’s true that different cultures of people have eaten insects for just as long, the situation that produced Mad Cow Disease was specific to producing beef products on a massive scale.
Part of the issue of producing crickets is putting tens or hundreds of thousands of them together in a factory.
This would create a much higher risk for viruses, bacteria, and parasites to spread between crickets. It could even cause new diseases, like we saw in Mad Cow Disease. Because it has never been done before, there’s just no way to know what could arise from processing crickets for mass markets.
Contamination Risks
On top of all those issues, there are also the many potential ways that food can be contaminated. The first and most obvious of these happens when handling or cooking food the wrong way. As we already mentioned, there are no standard practices for cooking crickets.
And even if we did, they might be hard to follow. Because crickets are so small, it’s much harder to verify their internal temperature like you might with a chicken breast.
Beyond that, there is the risk of chemical contamination. Insects can very quickly bioaccumulate anything they ingest or are exposed to. This could be anything in their environment, from animal waste (or their own waste, which they would no doubt be surrounded by), or pollutants like heavy metals, pesticides, or industrial cleaners.
There is a ton of opportunity for these poisonous chemicals to make their way into a cricket factory farm and contaminate thousands of them.
On top of all that, crickets contain chitin, which is commonly known as the cause of shellfish allergies. But producing them on a mass scale could potentially contaminate other products made in the same area with them. This new cross-contamination would require tons of oversight to prevent people from being exposed.
Risky Business
In the end, it’s all about what we don’t know. And the truth is that even with everything we know about crickets, and all the good they might do as a protein source, we are still lightyears away from safely eating them for dinner.