Do insects even feel pain? Isn't eating them the answer?
Short answer: The best current science finds strong evidence that insects can feel pain, stronger than the evidence that won crabs and lobsters legal protection.
No insect order failed a single criterion, low scores reflect research not yet done, not evidence that they feel nothing. Crabs and lobsters won legal protection in the UK on 5 of 8.
Gibbons et al. (2022); decapods from Birch et al. (2021)
The objection
“Insects are basically tiny robots. Farming them for protein is the guilt-free meat, they don’t feel anything.”
The answer
That was a comfortable assumption. The science no longer supports it.
In 2022 the same research group whose work earned crabs, lobsters and octopuses legal recognition as sentient beings in UK law turned the identical framework on insects. Applying eight criteria for pain, they found strong evidence, 6 of 8, in flies and cockroaches. That is a higher score than the 5 of 8 that won decapod crustaceans their legal protection. Bees, wasps, crickets and butterflies showed substantial evidence.
Critically, no insect order failed a single criterion. Where scores were low, it was because the experiments simply haven’t been done yet: absence of research, not evidence of absence. “There’s no proof they feel anything” really means “we mostly haven’t checked.”
So “eat insects instead” doesn’t dodge the problem. It scales it. Because insects are tiny, the numbers are astronomical. Farming them means raising and killing them in the trillions, each one now with a real claim to feeling what’s done to it.
You don’t need certainty to act decently. When the best evidence says a creature probably suffers, eating more of it because it’s small is the wrong way to respond.