Brian Tomasik argues that we should avoid insect farming entirely since it's likely worse (ethically speaking) than farming larger nonhuman animals:
> Entomophagy (eating insects for food) is sometimes proposed as an alternative to factory farming because it has lower environmental impact. But entomophagy is not necessarily more humane than factory farming of livestock all things considered, and along some dimensions it's actually worse, because it involves killing vastly more animals per unit of protein. Rather than promoting insect consumption, let's focus on plant-based meat substitutes.
Farmed insects live their full lifespan as opposed to larger animals which only live around ten percent on average.
I personally do not advocate anyone to eat plant-based meats because of the harmful effects on health (this coming anecdotally from myself after eating them for 2+ years). The phytates in almost all grains / legumes / beans bind to almost all free zinc copper and iron which has a very negative effect on health.
Insects (similar to ruminants) are able to naturally assimilate the high protein foods and filter out the phytates. Eating a half-pound per day of insects helped me to greatly recover my health after following a vegan diet for almost three years.
That makes the silly assumption that all organisms are equal. I'm sure we can all agree that a human's life is more valuable than a bacterium's. Or else you'd have to admit to genocide every time you use hand sanitizer.
It's an interesting point though - if we remove human life from the equation, how do you define the "value" of an animal or insect life?
It will even vary from culture to culture; for example, cows are revered in much of India, and in much of the west we seem to place more value on values we perceive as "cute", such as dolphins, or "magnificent", such as whales.
> Entomophagy (eating insects for food) is sometimes proposed as an alternative to factory farming because it has lower environmental impact. But entomophagy is not necessarily more humane than factory farming of livestock all things considered, and along some dimensions it's actually worse, because it involves killing vastly more animals per unit of protein. Rather than promoting insect consumption, let's focus on plant-based meat substitutes.
https://reducing-suffering.org/why-i-dont-support-eating-ins...