Would you eat meat made from ground-up mealworms?

The squirmy beetle larvae are rich in protein and deplete far fewer resources than cattle. How... delicious

Anything can taste good with a little srirahca, right?
(Image credit: Nie Jianjiang/Xinhua Press/Corbis)

Hope you're hungry. As populations continue to grow and global warming makes the land grab for resources more of a concern, researchers from the Netherlands are proposing a creative solution to the world's food problems. A new study, published in the journal PLoS One, suggests that mealworms (the squirmy brown larvae of the mealworm beetle) might help alleviate some of the world's hunger issues.

Researchers found that the production of one kilogram of edible mealworm protein generated significantly less greenhouse gas emissions than comparable amounts of beef, pork, and poultry. Raising mealworms, thanks to their small size and brief life spans, also requires much less land. The larvae take up just 10 percent of the land required to raise and feed cattle, 30 percent of the land needed to raise pigs, and 40 percent of that needed to raise chickens.

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Chris Gayomali is the science and technology editor for TheWeek.com. Previously, he was a tech reporter at TIME. His work has also appeared in Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic, among other places. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.