In an ideal world, Watson would have approached the treats cautiously, with a careful sniff and tentative lick. But, being a dog — with a voracious appetite and no discernible appreciation for narrative tension — he devoured them immediately. He didn’t know, or care, that they were chock-full of dried crickets and ground-up grubs.
And so what I had envisioned as a climactic taste test was over in seconds, with what was, in retrospect, an utterly predictable result: my dog would happily eat insects.
For years, some enterprising food entrepreneurs have been trying to convince people to do the same. As the global demand for protein grows, insects, they say, provide a more sustainable, ethical alternative to traditional meat. But the idea has been a tough sell. Although insects are a dietary staple in some cultures, for many people, they trigger a visceral disgust response.
But dogs? If they have a disgust reflex, I haven’t seen it. Insect entrepreneurs looking for open-minded eaters could hardly do better than good old Canis lupus familiaris.
“The dogs are not going to overthink it,” said Anne Carlson, the chief executive of Jiminy’s, which makes insect-based pet food and treats.
Hers is one of many pet food companies trying to remake meat. Earlier this year, the British company Meatly sold a limited run of dog treats made with lab-grown chicken. BioCraft Pet Nutrition, in Austria, is working to turn stem cells from mice into food for cats and dogs. And Bond Pet Foods, in the United States, is using yeast to produce animal protein through the process of fermentation.
There’s still substantial skepticism about the future of insect protein and lab-grown meat in the human food supply — and about whether such ingredients can really wean us off our rib-eyes and fried chicken. Some entrepreneurs see pet food as a natural proving ground.
If a company can “crack the code for pet food, the path to commercialization could be relatively easier,” said Rich Kelleman, the chief executive of Bond Pet Foods. Pet food companies don’t need to replicate the experience of biting into a perfectly crisped drumstick. “For dogs and cats, it has to taste good,” Mr. Kelleman said. “But it doesn’t necessarily have to taste like chicken, exactly.”
The pitch
Industrial animal agriculture takes a profound toll on the environment, requiring lots of land and water, and producing significant pollution, including greenhouse gases.
The pet food industry, which often uses agricultural byproducts, has a smaller environmental footprint than the human food sector. “But it is material, and we shouldn’t ignore it,” said Peter Alexander, an expert on global food systems at the University of Edinburgh.
In a 2020 study, Dr. Alexander and his colleagues found that dry dog and cat food accounted for between 1 and 3 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture. (Wet food tends to contain more prime meat and have a higher impact.)
“For individuals who maybe have a fairly low-emission diet and don’t do much traveling, but they have a large dog — actually, the dog could have a really substantial footprint,” Dr. Alexander said.
Insects and lab-made animal protein have the potential to be far less damaging to the environment. And because pets tend to eat the same thing every day, changing their food “can have real impact,” Ms. Carlson said. “It’s like flipping a switch. One day it’s unsustainable, the next, it’s sustainable.”
Reducing our reliance on industrial animal agriculture could also prevent immense animal suffering. “In the pet industry, it’s all about loving animals,” said Owen Ensor, the chief executive of Meatly. “And I think a lot of people are increasingly uncomfortable with needing to harm and kill a lot of other animals to feed those animals.”
Vegan pet food also addresses these problems but has to be very carefully formulated — and it won’t appeal to all owners, alt-meat entrepreneurs say. “People want to feed their pets meat,” said Mr. Ensor, who is vegan but has two cats who are not.
The hitch
In addition to Watson, I also have two cats. At first, figuring out how to feed them all was like trying to solve an impossible riddle.
Watson, an intensely food-motivated dog with a heart condition, needs a weight-control kibble and must be kept away from the cat food, which he finds tantalizingly delicious. Juniper, my chronically underweight cat, should ideally have free access to her food — and is also a picky eater who reliably consumes only chicken. Then there’s Goose, a cat who will eat until he makes himself sick and happens to have a food sensitivity to, yes, chicken.
Finding the right meal plan for this menagerie took months of trial and error. So, as much as the sustainability and animal welfare arguments appeal to me, I’m reluctant to start switching things up.
I’m not alone, apparently. “What we’re learning is that people don’t really react or buy based on sustainability,” Ms. Carlson said.
Shannon Falconer, the chief executive of BioCraft Pet Nutrition, agreed. “The main driver of any and all pet parent is the health of their animal,” she said. “That will supersede anything else.” In fact, another trend in the pet food market — the rise of high-end, human-grade products loaded with prime meat — runs directly counter to the quest for greater sustainability.
Some companies are leaning hard into health claims. Insects, they say, are perfect for pets like Goose, who are sensitive or allergic to common proteins. It’s a compelling argument, and if I ever need to find a new food for Goose, I’d consider an insect-based one.
But I’m not yet convinced by claims that insect protein is a “superfood” — one that some companies suggest could improve everything from gut health and coat quality to cognition and immune function.
Research suggests that insects are indeed a “high-quality protein source,” with good digestibility and palatability, said Kelly Swanson, a comparative nutritionist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. But data on specific functional benefits is limited, especially in cats and dogs. And companies will need to demonstrate that their products include enough of the ingredient to bring about whatever benefits they’re promising, Dr. Swanson said.
Creating nutritionally balanced products will require a deep understanding of these new proteins. In a study published earlier this year, Belgian researchers found that many insect-based pet foods carried inaccurate nutritional labels, and that some of those products were deficient in one or more critical nutrients. “There are still a lot of gaps in the knowledge and research,” said Camila Baptista da Silva, a doctoral student at Ghent University and an author of the study.
For their part, cultivated-meat companies note that their products are made without antibiotics or hormones, in controlled environments free of the pathogens that lurk in barns and slaughterhouses. But lab-grown meat isn’t risk-free; it could contain novel allergens, or be contaminated by pathogens during the production process.
The verdict
Ultimately, whether alternative proteins pay environmental dividends will depend on many factors, including how they are made — some production methods can be resource intensive — how widely they are adopted and what pet food products they displace.
As Dr. Alexander put it, “It all comes down to, ‘What are you swapping from? What are you swapping to?’” Transitioning from pet food containing premium beef, which has an especially high environmental impact, to products with lab-grown meat would probably yield environmental benefits, he said. “However, I’m doubtful that switching from animal byproducts or plant-based ingredients to lab-grown meat will be beneficial,” he added.
And in order to have a real impact, alt-protein companies will need to produce these ingredients at higher quantities and lower prices. Meatly, which is currently raising money for an industrial-scale production facility, launched with a limited supply of dog treats made with just four percent cultivated chicken.
Yora Pet Foods sells large bags of its insect-based dog kibble for $4.50 to $5 a pound, more than one-and-a-half times what I pay for Watson’s current food. At the moment, the grubs Yora uses cost almost as much to produce as free-range chicken, said James Milbourne, a managing director at the company. “If you walk into the shop and you’ve got a bag of lovely free-range chicken and a bag of insects, and they’re the same price,” he said, “it just makes it more difficult to get that person to take a punt on it.”
But if companies can scale up and bring prices down, I do think customers will follow. In a 2022 study, nearly half of dog and cat owners surveyed, including some who had no interest in eating lab-grown meat themselves, said they’d be willing to feed cultivated meat to their pets.
I’d consider it, too, although there aren’t currently such products available for purchase. And while I didn’t want to change any of my pets’ primary foods, I was happy to offer up some insect-based treats.
Goose gobbled them down almost as quickly as Watson did. But fickle Juniper wouldn’t touch the cricket treats, and she was hot and cold on the fly variety. Some days she seemed happy to scarf them down; other days she seemed almost offended by the offering. I could find no logic in her ever-shifting preferences. But there’s no accounting for taste, I guess — or often, it seems, for cats.
Emily Anthes is a science reporter, writing primarily about animal health and science. She also covered the coronavirus pandemic.
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