There are a number of compelling reasons to use insects as an alternative food source. Broadly speaking, insects are capable of providing a comparable (if not more beneficial) nutritional profile for pets at a lower financial and environmental cost. More specifically these benefits include…
Nutritional content
Independent nutritional analyses of insects indicates they are excellent sources of nutrients including minerals, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids and vitamins. Additionally, one of the biggest benefits of insects is that in many instances the whole insect can be consumed so there is no waste!
Environmental impact
Insects have a favourable environmental footprint when compared to traditional farming. This includes water, land, energy consumption and feed. For instance, per kg of protein, mealworms require ~20m2 of land (vs ~200m2 for beef) and produce ~20kg of CO2 (vs ~125kg for beef).
Efficiency
Insects are very efficient in converting feed into protein. When compared to current livestock farming, they require significantly less resources to grow comparable yields. As an example, within 18 days 1g of black soldier fly eggs grows into 2.4 kilograms of larvae protein.
It was these fab benefits that inspired us to source locally grown insects (black soldier fly and mealworms) and create BuggyBix.
Leave a comment