‘Yuck factor’: eating insects rather than meat to help the planet is failing, study finds

People are disgusted by the idea of eating bugs despite their lighter planetary cost compared to traditional livestock

Recent efforts to encourage people to eat insects are doomed to fail because of widespread public disgust at the idea, making it unlikely insects will help people switch from the environmentally ruinous habit of meat consumption, a new study has found.

Farming and eating insects has been touted in recent years as a greener alternative to eating traditional meat due to the heavy environmental toll of raising livestock, which is a leading driver of deforestation, responsible for more than half of global water pollution, and may cause more than a third of all greenhouse gases that can be allowed if the world is to avoid disastrous climate change, the new research finds.