A new delicacy is making a noise in restaurant kitchens across the world. With an overwhelming number of cicadas emerging in their trillions across the United States and some people considering them pests, these insects could be the answer to a worldwide problem – carbon emissions. Recent insights into the nutritional value of the creepy crawly are placing it on the menu as a more sustainable food source for the planet.
In the northern hemisphere’s summer of 2021, as temperatures rose so did the average cicada decibels. As part of their 17-year lifecycle, cicadas made their way to the surface from their underground homes to reverberate for the world. The insects burrow into trees to lay eggs, but once they reach the end of their short lifespan above ground, thousands of dead cicadas can pile up. Yet some chefs began harvesting cicadas when they appeared, eliminating them as a pest and using them instead as a food source.
With the equivalent amount of protein as red meat, consuming cicadas is one of the best ways of ingesting a high-protein diet with a minimal carbon footprint. The meat industry is one of the highest contributors to carbon emissions in the world. Cattle and pig farming emits 100 times more carbon than insect farming, and lowering the demand for this type of produce is essential to reducing greenhouse gases. Cicadas might be noisy, but these indicators of warm temperature could also prove to be far more important to minimising the impact of climate change than they have been given credit for.
