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Future Astronauts May Survive On Eating Silkworms
sciencehabit writes "Science reports that silkworms may be an ideal food source for future space missions. They breed quickly, require little space and water, and generate smaller amounts of excrement than poultry or fish. They also contain twice as many essential amino acids as pork does and four times as much as eggs and milk. Even the insect's inedible silk, which makes up 50% of the weight of the dry cocoon, could provide nutrients: The material can be rendered edible through chemical processing and can be mixed with fruit juice, sugar, and food coloring to produce jam."
Now we just have to solve this space radiation issue and how to shield astronauts from it.
Do you D?
so what do they taste like??
can we make them taste like bacon?
If you can find a way to properly polymerise their silk, you could even make plastic knives and forks (or better, a spork) out of their silk to eat them with.
Breed larger silkworks and you could even use them to make the plates to eat them from! BONUS!
They started drinking their own pee, and now they're gonna eat silkworms? No wonder why kids don't dream of becoming astronauts anymore, this thing is more awful than Survivor!
You just got troll'd!
"What's for dinner tonight, Dave?"
"Oh, I don't know, Frank, how about... MORE FU(#1NG WORMS!?"
"Just calm down and pass the worm jam."
Fear Factor: Astronaut Edition
Now Hershey's can spin this nasty incident as test marketing of their new Space Brownies!
~Philly
Seen 'em all over the place in Korea from street carts. They always have this particular insect trifecta: Silk Worms, Crickets, and freshwater Snails:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beondegi
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Do we really need to waste precious cargo space and weight to bring up food coloring? I suppose astronauts might want green or purple catchup too.
Benchilada eats silkworm pupae live on video, So You Don't Have To. (not mentioned in the video is the fact that his friend, helping him, started throwing up convulsively soon after they finished filming the episode.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Real astronauts eat'tang.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Astronaut 1, "But where in my contact does it say that I have to eat the same food for breakfast everyday for three years?"
Astronaut 2,"Paragraph 47, subsection 19, cause 9a. You can find it in the index under S.U.A.E.I."
Astronaut 1,"S.U.A.E.I.?"
Astronaut 2,"Shut up and eat it."
Apologies to Babylon 5.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
Even better is the Spnife: round enough to hold soup, but sharp enough to slice your mouth.
so what do they taste like?? can we make them taste like bacon?
Last year I was in Korea where the streets are lined with vendors frying up silkworm pupae on the street as an, *ahem*, delicacy. The smell wafting down the road can only be described as a cross between death and pus. I would eat my fellow astronauts over silkworms.
The big issue with space missions in mass. Silk worms aren't going to magically create silk worm meat (or whatever you call it) from nothing - for ever 1 kg of silk worm that you grow to eat, you will have to bring along at least 1 kg of silkworm food. So why not just bring human-edible food instead of silk worm food?
Given that it costs more to raise an animal on vegetable feed than you gain by eating it, why not just eat the food that they're feeding the silkworms ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This should be great for their fledgling space program and will prove they're committed to a peaceful future. They have vast quantities of old Silkworms laying around ready to be made into food. Gives a whole new meaning to the term explosive diarrhea though.
"Make dinner, not war" is what I always say.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
I guess I took it for granted that 170 silkworms would be easier to raise than 170 chickens.
Nobody likes me
Everybody hates me
Going into space to eat worms!
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Good one.
Just wanna point out that we had always been eating insect parts in jams, canned fruits, and other products, without being aware.
That said ... EEEEWWWW!! Over my dead body!
And if you get really bored in your new space habitat, you can make sexy underwear to keep your colony's population rising. :)
It doesn't matter how much silk underwear you use, you still won't reproduce with a silkworm.
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
My bearded dragon eats these things...we even have a small colony of silks that we raise. Mulberry (which is what you feed them) is actually kinda hard to get some seasons though it does come in a green brick mulch form, I personally wouldn't want to eat silks, as I've seen the beardie eat them live and its damn right icky. Personally I'd rather eat tofu...
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Are these human or klingon astronauts we are talking about?
"You can't allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them." [Condoleezza Rice]
So I wouldn't rule chickens out completely. Think how quickly you can get around a big space station using a chicken for propulsion! Not to mention the chickens are sure to be happy about their new-found flight capability. And if I know anything about poultry it's that a happy chicken is a tasty chicken.
-- The reader anything less than completely failing to not misunderstand this sig is cursed.
A Navy friend of mine worked on a Sub for many years. He always thought it was ironic that for a mission that required stealth they always seemed to have some of the loudest food you could find. Even MREs are edible, normal food.
Nothing in the exploration of space requires such nonsense self-depravation and oddities that keep getting leaked. I swear this is just a poly for more money.
Flour Torillas and refried beans is a remarkable compact food with spreadable cheese (think like butter) is easy to make. Even in zero G. Microwave it and you are good to go. The ideal of using silk worms is laughable when canned pastes and flat breads store very densely.
Here is a great "at home" experiment. Make a PBJ upside down. Doable with jelly in a squeeze bottle.
I mean seriously this is the most idiotic thing I have heard.
Can of refried beans is a more dense food source.
Suppliments can handle any short comings in the food supply.
How about:
Peanutbutter
Refried Beans
Tuna
beef jerky
whole grain frozen bagels
squeezy cheese
triscuits
Pringles
etc...
All of those can be packed\frozen\thawed with little trouble in dense formats.
Hell I know body builders that live on nothing but hard boiled eggs, whole grain bagels with peanut butter, diced chicken, milk, and tuna fish. 7 days a week. Years on end (excluding unusual meals on dates, holidays, etc.)
Chicken meat can be processed much like Spam and con be stored in a very compact space. Taking a cue from Tuna packaging you can use lightweight, vaccum sealed mylar bags to store the food. I have not tried freezing a hard boiled egg and thawing one to eat but bagels and even peanut butter seem to survive the freezer ok.
The key is density and as usual all things can be measured against SPAM for food density... :)
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I guess Chris Moriarty's novel "Spin Control", where a good deal of the biomass for a long-term space mission was silkworms, was ahead of the curve.
Steve over at The Sneeze posted his experience eating silkworms. I can't say they look overly appetizing.
Gross is indeed relative. Somewhere in the world somebody is going to be freaked out what you consider lovely and normal and natural.
A girl I knew quite put me off eggs for a while after describing them as "chickens' periods" and somebody else said they found cheese a bit hard to eat when you consider it as congealed, old, mouldy animal milk. As for what goes into sausages and burgers and meat paste?
As for meat, a friend of mine worked in a factory and told me about the machines they used and how they really get every last bit of animal product off a carcass and out of the skulls...
Shouldn't silkworms be called "space kittens"? Somehow, I don't think that any vegan astronauts were involve in this study - they never are.