Crickets vs Beef: Which is the Better Protein Source?
Try Cricket Protein!
People don’t naturally assume crickets are high in protein. And most people definitely would not consider crickets as even a possible source of protein.
I don’t suppose you’ve ever had a cricket steak. Or a double-cricket-cheeseburger. Or even a CLT. (cricket, lettuce & tomato…)
Because beef, pork, and poultry have been such an important group of animals for the Western world recently, few people go about trying crickets.
Why not just eat a steak?
Good question. The comparison with beef is not much of a contest. The deck is stacked in favor of crickets in most aspects, but since this is about cricket protein, let’s start there.
If you had 100g of steak and tallied up the grams of protein, you would end up with 25 grams of protein. Impressive! That’s about half of the protein people need in a day.
But 100g of crickets? You’ll end up with 68 grams of protein. In fact, beef is way down on the list of protein in different livestock. Take a look:
Percentage of Protein in…
- Beef Steak … 25%
- Pork Tenderloin … 32%
- Chicken Breast … 33%
- Crickets … 68%
And it’s not just a landslide in the protein arena. Crickets outpace beef in iron, vitamin B12 and basically everything that’s good for ya.
Input/Output
The resources necessary to put into a cow to get beef is staggering. When those resources are compared with what gets put into crickets it becomes outrageous.
To get 1 pound of each you’ll need…
Crickets
- 1 gallon of water
- 1 pound of feed
- A shoebox
Beef
- 1800 gallons of water
- Over 10 pounds of feed
- Over an acre of land
And more than that… you eat the whole cricket! The parts of a cow that end up as meat for people to gnaw on is actually pretty low. The bones, skin, and organs … these things are all counted out.
When people eat beef these days they’re missing out on all the dense nutrition in the organs like the liver and the heart.
With crickets, on the other hand, the goodies in those organs get passed right to you, because you eat the whole food. So why not give eating crickets a shot?