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I doubt it will really come up Isaac Send a noteboard - 11/07/2013 02:20:50 AM

View original postJust a few questions concerning edible insects. I like the idea myself, think it’s a bit yucky but would totally give it a try and could imagine insects becoming commercially available in Western countries (if not exactly part of mainstream food culture) in a decade or two.


View original postInfo/sales pitch : The EU invested 3 million euros in research concerning insects as novel sources of protein last year. Insects are rich in protein, very nearly on par with red meat. They can also be an awesome source of iron, zinc, calcium and magnesium among other minerals. Chitin could be utilized as a source of fiber. However, along with the scientific and technological problems (insect farming, microbiological safety, allergies, chemical risk factors, etc.) you also have the problem of marketing, i.e. people’s lack of enthusiasm.


View original post1. Should eating insects become the next big thing in Western food culture?

No, the next big thing in western food culture should be whatever the price vs preference dynamic spawns. We've attmepted on several occasions to steer people towards a given food or away from one and it hans't worked out well.


View original post2. How do you make insects an appealing food choice?

You don't. They've been available as food, and eaten by some out of necessity or dare, long before we learned to domesticate animals or sow crops. They've rarely caught on, even in times and places where starvation was rampant, in part because it takes a lot of energy to harvest and consume a bug in terms of calories produced. People have been pushing it a lot of late, claiming it - without real evidence - as a more economical food source. It isn't. There are any number of plants or algae which produce protein cheaper and can be processed into a nourishing and appealing food source as easily if not more so. If people choose to eat bugs then so be it, but most I think would prefer to be vegetarians eating existing or GMO high protein plants or algae then bug eaters, which is preferable anyway.


View original post3. Will we all be eating insects in the future? When will this happen?

No. Unless we radically alter human energy intake methods we will continue to have plants which produce parts of themselves which humans can not digest but other creatures can, and further we are not far off from being able to economically grow meat minus an attached brain. We are far more likely to see algae crops, current or GMO ones, as the protein crop then insects, it is blatantly superior economically and far more appealing to people, very few of whom would object to a shake or food made of processed algae more than a more expensive one made of processed bugs.


View original post4. What argument could be made against eating bugs?

None, if someone wishes to they're welcome to, though many would prefer it not be done in their presence, obviously many people already consume them, they're often a luxury or normal food in some places.


View original postTo elimininate the yuck factor, food industry would probably want to develop products that are as acceptable as possible to the consumers. Insect sausage, for example, probably wouldn’t be too terrible. If you can eat an ordinary sausage, you can probably stomach one with pureed mealworms in it. There’s also apparently this dessert called grasshopper pie with oreos and ice cream. Why not make an actual grasshopper pie?

Simple problem, 'yuck factor' is almost entirely in someone's head, and would intensify if there was any element of coercion involved in the consumption. Dietary preferences, or bias, is something heavily programmed as a kid too, so parents disgusted by the notion of eating bugs wouldn't serve it at home and be disgusted by it, and there'd be seven kinds of hell for any gov't org that tried to introduce it into school lunches.


View original post5. What conventional foods could be “upgraded” with the addition of insects?

Chicken, they routinely eat grubs, and we eat chicken. That's part of polyculture, you derive your meat as food that's a byproduct or underutilized niche of your primary growth method. If there are things that humans can not eat, or prefer not to eat, which can be produced, you feed them to things without that limitation and eat them. This concept of bugs as a food source is yet another of the weird notions spawned by the flawed thinking of not realizing that we already produce food in the most economical method based on available resources. We don't grow less plants because people want meat, we grow as much plants as we can economically sell and use a small portion of the remaining land for livestock. In many cases we have excess land on which it is more economical to grow corn to feed to animals then it is to use as grazing land. We don't optimize for human calories per acre because there are 30 billion acres of land on this planet and we can grow a hell of lot more than 800,000 calories per acre a year (how much a person needs a year) of which there are only 7 billion. These calorie crises often border on pseudo-science, and more often jump into it entirely. It can easily be demonstrated that through available technology a far higher population can be comfortably supported, we simply do not have that population need and the places suffering from alleged 'over population' merely suffer from internal strife and corruption preventing proper infrastructure and land management able to handle the matter. As long as a civilization can produce 2000 calories of food for significantly less than a day of labor a higher population can be supported and the most economically viable methods and crops will be used, rather than the most rawly efficient in terms of Calories per acre. If people develop a taste for bugs, then it will become economically viable, and attend to itself without encouragement.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein

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Would you eat insects? - 10/07/2013 08:19:55 PM 917 Views
Possibly? - 10/07/2013 08:50:56 PM 776 Views
Re: Possibly? - 11/07/2013 09:19:18 PM 592 Views
No, but I'm picky. - 10/07/2013 08:52:11 PM 656 Views
Also, this post makes me wish eatbugs was still around. *NM* - 10/07/2013 08:53:34 PM 299 Views
Re: No, but I'm picky. - 10/07/2013 08:54:14 PM 607 Views
Your cerebral cortex has probably glitched. - 10/07/2013 09:08:20 PM 662 Views
I had a red ant and a lady bug once. - 10/07/2013 09:10:53 PM 674 Views
Sure, why not? I'm not prejudiced. *NM* - 10/07/2013 10:59:12 PM 303 Views
It's really a marketing problem is all it is. - 11/07/2013 12:10:54 AM 886 Views
The sad part is ... - 11/07/2013 03:04:37 AM 594 Views
Been there, done that. - 11/07/2013 01:26:30 AM 690 Views
I doubt it will really come up - 11/07/2013 02:20:50 AM 625 Views
Thank you for this response. Very interesting. - 11/07/2013 09:09:24 PM 637 Views
Your welcome, its an interesting subject - 12/07/2013 03:54:31 AM 576 Views
Re: Your welcome, its an interesting subject - 12/07/2013 02:56:22 PM 535 Views
Re: Your welcome, its an interesting subject - 12/07/2013 04:46:53 PM 624 Views
Mmm, they taste like chicken, Timon! - 11/07/2013 04:24:56 AM 600 Views
Sure why not? Some, at least - 11/07/2013 12:18:16 PM 576 Views
I have. They were OK. There's a reason we don't eat them - 11/07/2013 06:19:32 PM 667 Views
I mean, I'm from Louisiana, so we already pretty much do. - 11/07/2013 09:41:11 PM 574 Views
How? Sautéed with garlic and olive oil, everything is yummy. *NM* - 13/07/2013 01:21:44 PM 301 Views

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