Bug Out

I ate an ant and I liked it. Apologies, Katy Perry, but this is important. I tried ants because, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock production takes up nearly one-third of the Earth’s entire landmass. And the animals themselves generate nearly 20% of the world’s greenhouse emissions. That’s more than all the cars, trains, boats and planes put together. In the search for a sustainable protein, it’s sink or swim time.

Fortunately, 2 billion of our planet’s 8 billion inhabitants indulge in a wondrously diverse protein source. Predominantly in Africa and Asia, people eat more than 1, 900 edible insect species as part of their normal diet. The most common nibble is beetles, followed by caterpillars in second place, with hymenoptera (bees, ants and wasps) in third. And don’t worry, there’s always a seasonal item on the bug menu. In Thailand, for example, that means tortoise beetles (bitterly crunchy) in