Why Bugs?
Cats eat meat. And meat, produced with the methods necessary to satisfy 7.5 billion people and counting, is very problematic. It has a huge resource footprint: producing one pound of chicken requires 4.5 pounds of feed, and more than 20 pounds of feed goes into a pound of beef. Meat production also consumes a lot of water and generates a lot of waste.
Then there's animal welfare. Farmed animals — 9 billion in the United States alone — live in misery. As for catching wild animals, that has its own problems: our landscapes and oceans are fast becoming depleted.
You probably know all this, and perhaps even take it into consideration when you eat. Maybe you're vegan, or a vegetarian. Or you've simply made an effort to eat less meat — and when you do, it's from a good place.
It's time to start feeding our cats a food that's both ethical and sustainable.
But what about your cats? That's not so easy. It's dangerously unhealthy to put your cat on a meat-free diet. You can try to buy cat food made from animals raised in an environmentally sound, humane manner, but there's not much of it. There certainly isn't enough to feed all our cats.
Insects are the sustainable, ethical alternative. Producing one pound of crickets — the primary ingredient in our food — requires just two pounds of feed. Insect farming is hugely more efficient and less wasteful than regular animal production. Captive insects also live far better lives than industrially-farmed animals.
Over the last several years, insects have become a fast-growing source of human food. The techniques necessary to farm them efficiently and inexpensively are being refined. It's time to start feeding our cats a food that's both ethical and sustainable — and you can help make that possible.