Bug appétit: Maggots may revolutionize animal feed industry, help with waste management and climate change

Dried soldier fly larvae
(Washington Post photo by Loren Elliott)

As the world's population grows and resources are stretched, the United Nations warns that it will be increasingly difficult to find cheap, reliable sources of protein for people and livestock. Enter the humble black soldier fly. Some scientists say its larvae could be the key to feeding the planet sustainably.

"That’s because of the black soldier fly larva’s remarkable ability to transform nearly any kind of organic waste — cafeteria refuse, manure, even toxic algae — into high-quality protein, all while leaving a smaller carbon footprint than it found," Christopher Ingraham reports for The Washington Post.  "In one week, a soldier fly colony of modest size can turn a ton of waste into 100 pounds of protein and 400 pounds of compost . . . In one year, a single acre of black soldier fly larvae can produce more protein than 3,000 acres of cattle or 130 acres of soybeans."

Jeff Tomberlin, an entomology professor at Texas A&M University, said using maggots for protein could "save lives, stabilize economies, create jobs and protect the environment," Ingraham reports. Scientists have known about the potential for decades, but couldn't figure out the precise mix of temperature, humidity and light to reliably breed them in captivity until 2002.

Soldier fly larvae are great at getting rid of waste. They'll eat just about anything, including distillery mash, food scraps, manure (pig or human), and more. "Using larvae to eliminate food waste at this scale could be an ecological game-changer. A 2011 U.N. report detailed how rotting food emits millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accounting for about 7 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But when maggots consume food waste, they take all that carbon with them," Ingraham reports.

The larvae are mostly gaining steam in the U.S. as a source of animal feed, but they have potential as food for humans if Americans can get over the ick factor (oven-dried larvae reportedly taste like Fritos corn chips). About 2 billion people in the world already include insects in their diets, according to the U.N., so the larvae may be more likely to catch on as food elsewhere. They could be dried and ground up into protein powder, which could be mixed with other foods, to further side-step cultural hurdles toward insect consumption, Ingraham reports.