Gourmet Grasshoppers!?!

Follow Up 8.15.10: Bug Bites for Sustainability? $$$ quote:

"The lower we eat on the food chain, the more sustainable our diets become. The invertebrate level is a good place to settle down and make a meal, for these spineless species are excellent processors of energy. On average, invertebrate species utilize 20 percent of assimilated energy (i.e.. food ingested and not pooped out) for growth and reproduction. Vertebrates, by contrast, use just 2 percent of assimilated energy for growth and reproduction, the balance being used for nothing but fueling motion and metabolism.

Of course, a vegetarian diet is the most sustainable long-term nutrition plan of all. Plants not only draw their energy directly from the sun via photosynthesis, they do it efficiently, directing up to 85 percent of assimilated energy toward making more of themselves. Algae can double their biomass in hours just by soaking up the sun."