Insects could help turn beer waste into beef

Eating insects is one of those ideas that never quite seems to catch on. The United Nations endorsed the idea a decade ago, but, in the West at least, bugs remain mostly absent from supermarket shelves. Faced with an indifferent—or disgusted—public, scientists have been exploring other options. One is to feed the insects instead to livestock, which are not so picky.Of course, the insects need to eat, too. To date, they have mostly been reared on leftover chicken feed. But the supply of that is limited, and if insect-reared meat is to take off, new sources will be needed. In a paper in , Niels Eriksen, a biochemist at Aalborg University, suggests feeding them on the waste products of the beer industry.