Reasons to put insects on the Christmas menu

Rearing animals for meat is bad for the planet. Insects, on the other hand, are both nutritious and environmentally friendly

If you're looking for a novelty Christmas dinner that will help curb greenhouse gases, why not try eating insects? Conventional meat farming produces massive amounts of greenhouse gases, especially from sheep and cattle belching methane - a gas roughly 20 times more powerful as a heat-trapping gas than carbon dioxide.

Add to that other culprits, such as nitrogen oxides given off from fertilisers and carbon dioxide created in transport and refrigeration. All told, the livestock industry gives off 18% of all manmade greenhouse gases. Insects, though, give off far less greenhouse pollutants for the same weight of food.