7 votes

Insects are 'food of the future'

6 comments

  1. [6]
    moocow1452
    (edited )
    Link
    I've seen this before. I get that it's protein and helpful, and could revolutionize nutritional science, but to say Insects could be a good food source if we just got over the ick, is kinda like...

    I've seen this before. I get that it's protein and helpful, and could revolutionize nutritional science, but to say Insects could be a good food source if we just got over the ick, is kinda like saying "unpowered human flight is totally a thing, if only the ground wasn't in the way!"

    EDIT: I get it, ick is relative. But I'm not sure of it breaks out of niche food like Soylent, maybe if insects are processed and fed to livestock or their lab grown counterparts sure, but I don't see how "Eat Insects, Not Beef" is marketed outside of the moral argument or novelty, both of which have existing infrastructure.

    2 votes
    1. NaraVara
      Link Parent
      Ick is a cultural thing while gravity is a natural law. It's not that hard to change once you make it okay or market it as "cool." If we can convince people to be fine with eating pink-slime...

      Ick is a cultural thing while gravity is a natural law. It's not that hard to change once you make it okay or market it as "cool." If we can convince people to be fine with eating pink-slime chicken nuggets, I think cricket should be an easy enough sell.

      There are cultures where eating certain insects isn't out of the ordinary. Even in the rural USA it wasn't super unusual to eat cicadas whenever those 17 year broods came around.

      3 votes
    2. nacho
      Link Parent
      There's an obvious way of sidestepping the "ick-factor". That is feeding the insects to something and then eating that something instead of eating the insects directly. Insect farms producing...

      There's an obvious way of sidestepping the "ick-factor".

      That is feeding the insects to something and then eating that something instead of eating the insects directly.


      Insect farms producing insect flour and protein to feed to fish or birds or other organisms that have insects in their natural diets could be both more environmentally friendly and better in terms of nutrition for the animals and the resulting human/animal food.

      Insect farming means you can get protein on a really low trophic level which reduces climate footprint and wasted energy moving sequentially up the food chain.

      It's only per 2017 (PDF) that using insects in fish feed has been allowed in the EU.


      Technology, research and production is therefore only in really early stages. Things like having to slaughter insects individually in a certified slaughterhouse (!) were required until the change in law.

      To use an example, say you had a Black Soldier Fly-factory. Their generations are under a month in length. If you set aside 2-3 percent for breeding, you have a self-sustaining population. They eat almost anything (meats, grains etc.) except things really high in cellulose. Essentially they can be used to compost very efficiently.

      The flies can't live in Northern European climates so say they were to escape from a factory, they'd just die. They don't sting. Adult flies don't eat. They aren't venomous or poisonous to anything (so you can feed them to anything from say pigs to birds to fish etc.

      The species is extremely efficient and about 45 percent protein (the rest is mostly fat). You harvest larvae that stop eating and start staying still before they pupate before turning adult, so they're easy to harvest after maximum growth before energy is expended.


      The future isn't a larvae smoothie, but larvae-fed bacon, salmon and chicken.

      3 votes
    3. [2]
      mat
      Link Parent
      Except insects are delicious. Deep fried crickets in sweet soy sauce are amazing. You only have to get over the ick once. You don't even have to know about it - you can already buy protein bars...

      Except insects are delicious. Deep fried crickets in sweet soy sauce are amazing. You only have to get over the ick once. You don't even have to know about it - you can already buy protein bars with cricket flour in and there's zero ick involved (well, there is because they taste like shit like all of those things, but that's because people will insist on using dates as sweeteners and it's nothing to do with crickets)

      People get over ick. People used to think indoor toilets were icky. People used to think bathing was icky. But humans aren't ever going to fly no matter how many minds get changed.

      Also considerable amounts of the world already eat insects perfectly happily. It's really just the West who are icky about it.

      2 votes
      1. NaraVara
        Link Parent
        To be fair, before indoor plumbing "bathing" involved filling a tub up with water, putting it in the middle of a tiled room, and having each member of the family take turns cleaning themselves off...

        People used to think bathing was icky.

        To be fair, before indoor plumbing "bathing" involved filling a tub up with water, putting it in the middle of a tiled room, and having each member of the family take turns cleaning themselves off in the same water. This would start with the man of the house, who was likely engaged in a lot of sweaty, dirty manual labor, possibly time trudging through horse or cow manure.

        So for a lot of folks, it actually was pretty icky unless you lived by a source of fresh water.

        4 votes
    4. Wes
      Link Parent
      The ick factor seems solvable. I mean, it's completely normal for people to eat the flesh and meat of other animals every day. Even the word "meat" feels like a euphemism. We're talking about the...

      The ick factor seems solvable.

      I mean, it's completely normal for people to eat the flesh and meat of other animals every day. Even the word "meat" feels like a euphemism. We're talking about the actual meaty, inside bits that make up animals. The porous fat cells, the gristle. We put barbeque sauce on it.

      Eating cricket flour by comparison almost sounds more sophisticated. I don't see the big deal.

      1 vote