There is a growing movement to find the next “future food” which is good for humans, animals and the environment.

While this may sound like an impossible task, the answer is already here - insects!

Insects can be farmed anywhere, in any environment. They don’t destroy land, you can grow them on by-products of the food industry and they’re full of essential nutrients. Best of all, farming insects saves water because they grow fast, reproduce quickly, and need very little water.

Why does it matter?

According to the Water Footprint Network, the increase in production and consumption of animal products is putting enormous pressure on the globe’s freshwater resources.

Meat production uses a lot of water, almost a third of the water footprint of total agricultural production. If we compare crickets to cows, it is obvious how much water we could be saving. It takes 2200 litres of water to get 100g of beef, and about 2000 times less to get 100g of crickets.

Although meat farming is often targeted as the most intensive sector for energy, water and carbon, it’s actually lower on the list compared to grain, fruit and vegetable farming. The good news is bugs, insects, and even arachnids pack more protein, pound for pound, than most traditional meat sources and contain enough fibre, vitamins, and minerals to rival the nutritional value of some grains, fruits, and vegetables.

An ancient superfood

While eating insects might seem strange, Insects have served as a food source for people for tens of thousands of years, all over the planet. Today insect eating is rare in the developed world, but insects remain a popular food in many developing regions of Central and South America, Africa, and Asia. In fact, 80% of the world’s population already eat insects regularly as part of their diet.

There are an estimated 1,462 species of recorded edible insects including arachnids. And there are hundreds if not thousands more that simply have not been sampled or perhaps not even discovered yet.

From novelty to normalcy

There is an increasing movement in the UK to embrace entomophagy (the scientific word for ‘eating insects’) and one restaurant in Pembrokeshire called Grub Kitchen is doing just that.

Grub Kitchen is based on the award-winning visitor attraction, academic centre of excellence, and working farm called The Bug Farm. A glance over its mouth-watering menus offers up such culinary delights as Bug Wellington, which is made with chestnuts, mixed bugs and wild mushrooms wrapped in cricket crepes, as well as their signature bug burgers (a blend of toasted crickets, mealworms and grasshoppers) and even a cricket and carrot cake for dessert.

So what do you think? Would you be willing to wolf down a witchetty grub or crunch on a cricket to help save water?