• Question: If we used insect farms how would we get cows milk and cheese?

    Asked by mee3megemel to Alex, Claire, Kate, Marcus, Neil on 23 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Marcus Johns

      Marcus Johns answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      The idea behind insect farms is to provide protein rich food – which we in the west currently get from meat – whilst minimising the carbon footprint from the food production. This doesn’t meant that we won’t have cows any more but may not eat as much meat assuming that our culture change such that eating insects is acceptable.

      You may have seen in the news the burger that was grown in the lab and eaten. One of the academics on my department is now trying to scale-up the process so that we may one day eat meat that is grown in the lab.

    • Photo: Alex Lyness

      Alex Lyness answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Hey mee3megel,

      As Marcus said, I don’t think we’ll be replacing all farms overnight if we start eating insects. Insects will be used to supplement a balanced diet.

      If all cows were to disappear, you could make milk and cheese using things like Soya Beans (it doesn’t taste as nice as the real stuff tho).

      Let’s hope we still have cheese in the future as it will go really nice on a cockroach and meal worm pizza!

      😀

    • Photo: Claire Brockett

      Claire Brockett answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      I agree with Alex – soya milk doesn’t taste as nice as cows milk!
      Hopefully as the others have said, it would supplement our diet – not take over, so we’ll still have cows for meat, cheese and milk, but with some other sources of protein too…
      I’m not convinced by the cheesy mealworm pizza though Alex – I’ll let you eat that one first!

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