Why Eat Invasive Species?
- Miya's
- Invasives
Invasive species are connected in numerous ways to the most challenging environmental issues we face today, like climate change and precipitous loss of biodiversity. In the entire history of life on Earth, there have been five major extinction events. Many in the scientific community believe that human activity may be leading us to the brink of a sixth: the Anthropocene Extinction.
As regions become warmer, invasive species establish themselves to the detriment of native species. In the U.S. alone, there are over 50,000 established invasive species resulting in trillions of dollars of economic damage and often irreversible environmental and social destruction.
From the woolly mammoth to the passenger pigeon, humans have eaten countless animals to extinction. Today, hundreds of animals are facing extinction due to the human desire to eat them. The human appetite is one of the most destructive forces on Earth so shifting that appetite towards invasive species—and away from species that are farmed in a way that is environmentally destructive—such as industrial livestock production—or other’s that are over- fished or over-hunted—is part of the complex solution to an increasingly complex plethora of human and environmental problems.
Furthermore, five billion pounds of pesticides are dumped into our ecosystem worldwide each year in order to destroy pests like the grasshopper and weeds like the dandelion that are healthier and tastier to eat than most store-bought food. A third of all pesticides used in the United States are capable of causing contamination in groundwater, neurotoxicity, sterility, birth defects, and cancer.
Incorporating these agricultural pests into our diets could reduce pesticide use, provide farmers with an additional income stream, and offer consumers a highly nutritious food source. Our challenge is to be able to transform these wildly exotic but highly destructive species into recipes that our audiences will love.
Bun
As regions become warmer, invasive species establish themselves to the detriment of native species. In the U.S. alone, there are over 50,000 established invasive species resulting in trillions of dollars of economic damage and often irreversible environmental and social destruction.
From the woolly mammoth to the passenger pigeon, humans have eaten countless animals to extinction. Today, hundreds of animals are facing extinction due to the human desire to eat them. The human appetite is one of the most destructive forces on Earth so shifting that appetite towards invasive species—and away from species that are farmed in a way that is environmentally destructive—such as industrial livestock production—or other’s that are over- fished or over-hunted—is part of the complex solution to an increasingly complex plethora of human and environmental problems.
Furthermore, five billion pounds of pesticides are dumped into our ecosystem worldwide each year in order to destroy pests like the grasshopper and weeds like the dandelion that are healthier and tastier to eat than most store-bought food. A third of all pesticides used in the United States are capable of causing contamination in groundwater, neurotoxicity, sterility, birth defects, and cancer.
Incorporating these agricultural pests into our diets could reduce pesticide use, provide farmers with an additional income stream, and offer consumers a highly nutritious food source. Our challenge is to be able to transform these wildly exotic but highly destructive species into recipes that our audiences will love.
Bun