A team of scientists at Plymouth University is hoping to set up the world’s first shipworm farm. The marine pests, which they have renamed “naked clams”, are nutritious, high in vitamin B12, and require only wood and water to grow.

It’s wonderful news. We desperately need sustainable sources of protein: meat is responsible for nearly 60% of greenhouse gases from food production, while industrial fish farming has huge environmental costs.

For a number of years in the mid-2010s, my partner became obsessed with the idea that over the course of our lifetimes we would all end up eating insects. He had read an article about a London restaurant that served crickets, and sounded thrilled by the prospect, although for one reason or another we never made it there. This didn’t stop him from expounding the benefits of tail-to-tentacle eating to anyone who would listen.

This all changed when we went to Thailand earlier this........

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