Proposal

Are bugs and larva the protein source of the future for the United States?

I first became very interested with the topic I chose from the movie Food Inc. The movie
talked a lot about how a few major corporations in the Unite States are in control of the food
industry and how they produce large quantities of meats with little to no care for the product(the
animals). Growing up I had first hand experience with working with animals because my
grandmother has her own chicken coop. I want to make aware to all people who care about
animals and the direction the food industry is going. So I went with a topic that really caught my
eye one day as I was browsing through the internet. It was an article called The Benefits of
Eating Insects. At first thought, all I was thinking about was this could not be true this is just a
hoax. But as I read I continued to become very interested and to the point where I was asking
myself, maybe we should find an alternative food source for protein like bugs and insects.
I want to make this paper as informative as possible so that my audience may gain as
much knowledge as possible on the issue. If everyone in the United States knew what was really
going into our bodies people would want to do something to fix this increasing problem. I hope
that I can try and persuade the audience to make an effort to change the food industry to better
benefit living animals, the air we breathe in, and the farmers producing the food people eat.

Process

The process was very simple. As soon as I decided on this topic I immediately was going
through every article I could find. I used specific websites that I know have a lot of credibility
when it comes to their information. For example websites like NewYorkTimes.com,
ScientificAmerican.com, and NewsWeekly.com. I would write down notes and comments after
reading each article; just writing down for the most part cold hard facts that would help give
credibility to my paper. Also, I tried not to get too emotionally evolved in each article to keep an
open mind and cut out any of the potential bias I may have on the subject.
After gathering all of the information for my research paper, it was time to find out what
my official research question was going to be. In the beginning, I struggled with asking a specific
enough question so that my audience could read the title immediately be drawn into the topic.
With my topic being a more gross topic, this made everything that much more challenging.
After many changes to the initial question I started with I finally felt that my question was a
perfect fit for the paper I was about to write.

Paper

The question I would like to ask is whether bugs and larvae are the protein source of the
future for the United States. I became very interested in this topic because the movie Food, Inc
made me aware of the way our food is being raised, killed, and eaten. I was disgusted with how
the livestock was treated and believe that there should be a big change in the food industry. Cows
and chickens being forced to unnatural conditions it is just not right. Treating the animals with
no moral value and feeding them hormones and GMOs to produce more food is wrong. Other
problems being faced are things such as E coli and ammonia being present in our meat resulting
in innocent people dying (Kenner, Food Inc.). The long term effects are what really stand out
the most. The amount of pollution that is being produced by factories and excrement of animals
is going to eventually be a problem for all American people . Another long term problem the
United States is going to have to face is how fast the population is growing and how land is
going to become a problem in the near future. Instead of using land for animals, we could use the
land to grow crops. Otherwise, will the government turn to cutting down forests and other natural
land so we have enough room for animals? These are the questions I began to ask myself.
Humans need protein. To have a full, balanced diet people need to have this main source
of food energy. This is why chicken, beef, and all meats are in such high demand. People who
are vegetarians and people who have low protein diets do not receive enough protein and
vitamins that meat produces to have a well balanced diet (DCosta, Whats Stopping Us from
Eating Insects?). Plant protein is does not give a lot of variety--mostly just beans and nuts. But
cows, chickens, pigs and other animals are not the only

Paper pg. 2
animals that produce protein. Insects and larvae are also sources of protein. So why dont we

start eating insects and bugs instead turning to inhumane methods of producing an enormous
amount of meat for the demanding economy? This is why I think we should.
Bugs and insects can be a good solution to the problems we are facing with the high demand of
meat because they are high in protein, Vitamin B, and also low in fat (Dicke, The Benefits of
Eating Bugs). There would be little waste by raising bugs and insects whereas the waste for
cows, pigs, and other animals produce a much larger amount of waste. Insects and bugs would be
much easier to raise than livestock would because the livestock is so much higher up on the food
chain which results in more grain being eaten, water for livestock to drink, and other resources
being consumed (Dicke, The Benefits of Eating Bugs). Land is a very precious thing in todays
world, with it constantly shrinking it is a problem we are going to have to face in the future.
However, farms for insects would be much more condensed than livestock farms because bugs
and insects naturally live close together whereas livestock naturally does not. Also, insects and
bugs would be better environmentally because they produce less ammonia and other greenhouse
gases than current animals the meats currently being used.

Ponder

After completing my paper I feel more knowledgeable and aware about this controversial
topic. Even though I do not think we should start eating bugs and larvae in the next couple of
years, this paper really made me want to do something about the food industry and a future long
term problem the United States is going to be facing. From what science is telling us, this is
going to be a future problem and I think we should working towards a better solution before this
gets out of hand.
What was really helpful for me was before writing my paper I wrote down all of the
information I would need to write my paper. I then wrote a couple sentences about each fact I
had to back up the information I was giving in my paper. This made my paper so much easier to
write and organize. I did not have the problem of putting my information all over the place which
I currently have a problem with in my writing. I actually found my problem to be trying to use all
of my information and get out my point but keeping my paper to the required two to four pages.

Work Cited

"How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2009.
Marcele, Dicke. The Benefits of Eating Insects..Wall Street Journal Online. 19 Feb.
2011.
Main, Douglas. Why Environmentalists Want Us All to Eat Bugs.. News Weekly. 9 Oct.
2014.
DCosta, Krystal. Whats Stopping Us From Eating Bugs?. Scientific American. 24
July, 2013