Save the world by feeding Fido flies
LOVE your dog, but worried about the environmental impact of their meat-heavy diet? A British company is offering a solution: feed your pooch insects instead.
It has launched a dry dog food made from black soldier fly larvae in an effort to tackle the “carbon pawprint” created by pets.
“One of the best things we can do for the environment is to reduce our meat consumption, but up to now there haven’t been many options for our carnivorous four-legged friends,” said Tom Neish, the brains behind Yora dog food.
There are nearly 9million dogs in Britain alone.
Studies suggest pets consume about a fifth of the world’s meat and fish, and a dog’s carbon footprint is more than twice that of a 4x4 car, said Neish.
Compared to beef farming, it said the grubs need just 2% of the land and 4% of the water to produce each kilogram of protein, which means they generate 96% less greenhouse emissions.
The grubs are grown on vegetable waste at a Dutch farm and the left over matter provides fertiliser for crops.
Neish said a teaspoon of fly eggs could create 100kg of high-protein larvae in 14 days.
“It’s an amazing nutrient cycle that has been underutilised,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Insects have been part of the food cycle since the beginning of time, but we just haven’t been tapping into it.”
Vet Rory Cowlam, who stars in the BBC TV show The Pets Factor, predicted other pet food companies would follow suit.
“Insect protein is a really sustainable way of producing protein. I think it’s really exciting and I’m sure we’re going to see a huge trend now.”
Yora is named after one of the last uncontacted tribes in the Amazon rain forest, which is threatened by the rising demand for farmland to meet the world’s booming appetite for meat.
But Neish, who is developing a similar food for cats, admitted it could be a challenge to persuade the public to “get over the ick factor”.
“Once you get over your preconceptions, it’s actually quite tasty,” he added. | Reuters