ANIMAL INSTINCTS

Think of a locust. Actually, it’s quite hard to think of a single locust. They travel in plague proportions, consuming crops and ravaging regions. You might not imagine these greedy little insects to be fussy eaters, instinctively adjusting what they devour in pursuit of the perfect balanced diet. Time to think again.

“WHEN PROTEIN WAS SCARCE, THE ANIMALS WOULD OVER-CONSUME THEIR CARB-RICH/ LOW-PROTEIN FOODS UNTIL THEIR DAILY PROTEIN QUOTA HAD BEEN REACHED”

It’s 1991 and two scientists sit together at a computer in a small office at Oxford University. The men are exhausted. They’ve just completed a huge experiment in dietary science. Long days in a cramped, overheated lab, feeding precise quantities of 25 carefully prepared foodstuffs (differing proportions of carbs and protein) to 200 hungry young locusts. Every day they’ve meticulously measured how much each insect has consumed. Now that the locusts have reached maturity, the experiment is over and the scientists stare at the results. What they’ve discovered will go on to have profound implications for our own, human, relationship