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How tax dollars fund the great insect protein swindle [1]

['Ellsworth Toohey']

Date: 2025-06-25

Trillions of insects are being boiled alive in taxpayer-funded facilities that promised to save the planet but are actually making things worse.

The insect farming industry sold us a dream: environmentally-friendly protein that would help feed the world. But according to Bentham's Newsletter, the reality is a nightmare of failing companies, environmental damage, and mass insect torture. These farms aren't feeding hungry humans — they're producing expensive feed for factory-farmed chickens and fish, while generating 13.5 times more carbon emissions than soy-based alternatives, according to UK government research.

It's an industry built entirely on false promises, and its dirty secrets are starting to emerge. The most common farmed insect, the black soldier fly, meets a gruesome end through mass starvation, boiling, or microwaving — processes that can take hours. Meanwhile, the companies behind these operations are hemorrhaging money despite massive government handouts. The industry's largest player recently collapsed, despite receiving half of its funding from taxpayers.

Disease runs rampant in overcrowded facilities, threatening to spread to wild insect populations. And while companies claim adult black soldier flies "don't need to eat," research shows this is false — they require liquid nutrition and slowly starve without it.

"Through interviews with insect rearing experts we discover that currently the insect industry is not able to offer many economic, environmental or social values," says Bentham's.

[Via The Browser]

Previously:

• Expert answers Internet's burning questions about insects

• Bug-A-Salt 2.0, take arms against flying insects

• Peter Kuper's Insectopolis: A history of insects, told by insects

• Cute bugs live their best life on Gregor Samsa's favorite Twitter account

• Insects are going extinct eight times faster than other animals

• Infographic ranks the pain of stinging insects, from 'spicy' to 'satanic'

• Scientists cook with bug butter made from insects

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