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Scientists Advocate Replacing Cattle With Insects
rhettb writes "Scientists in the Netherlands have discovered that insects produce significantly less greenhouse gas per kilogram of meat than cattle or pigs. Their study, published in the online journal PLoS, suggests that a move towards insect farming could result in a more sustainable — and affordable — form of meat production."
Would they be more allergenic though?
I know more people who are allergic to arthropods than who are allergic to beef/chicken/pork.
Not sure why this is so- maybe it's the exposure to dust mites?
And they taste better too
I've also heard it suggested that ostrich would be a pretty sustainable replacement.
It's worth considering that the amount of greenhouse gases by cattle may not be the problem that it's said to be. A lot of greenhouse gases are emitted by lakes and a lot of other sources too.
Add to this the fact that it would be a lot worse if the temperature did turn down instead of up. Starvation and war may be the result when the polar grows or there are years where the temperature limits the crops severely.
Think what would happen if all corn suddenly froze in the US several years in a row. Or that the yield dropped on other base food with 30%. Would make what happened in New Orleans during/after Katrina a breeze.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Remember we have a very tolerant soft drugs policy. In the end it all works out.
The scientists here have managed to completely ignore one simple but important fact; no one has any good recipes for insect meat. With the meat being so far outside what's usually considered food, that could kill it. Even currying might not be enough to get people to eat this stuff.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
It sounds even more awesome than you can imagine. The bugs in the front are locusts. I prefer not to imagine what will happen if we "improve" them as we do with all domestic animals and the improved locust capable of living in let's say across the entire temperate zone gets our in the wild.
In any case - fair point about the lawns.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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Makes me even happier that I am a vegetarian.
You can't handle the truth.
Like you get used to eating shrimps and crabs, you'd probably get used to eating all kind of insects as long as scientists growing them bigger...
*Clicking on TFA and looking at the giant freaking COCKROACH*
Ok, I take my words back. I'll never get used to it.
I advocate our insectiod overlords eat us instead.
The vegan mafia called.
They threatened with tofu ninjas and potato cannons.
They said they have higher efficiency and described resistance as futile. :P
Looks like everyone forgot to mention this would probably also help solve America's obesity problem. You'd eat a lot less McDonalds if you KNEW where their meat came from, especially if it came from bugs.
If only we could get over the gross factor.
But then in large parts of the world, I know at least Africa and here in Asia I've also seen them, insects are part of the menu already. Often considered delicacies even. So they're definitely edible.
Let the buggalo roam.
I think the "stupid" tag will have to suffice.
Hi, i'd like to advocate replacing scientists with barf bags.
The reason I eat meat is that it tastes like meat, which is tasty. I don't know what these insects taste like (a quick search of the articles didn't find anything, I havn't read them through though), but I bet it's not anything like a deliciously red on the inside piece of cow. There are other sources of necessary proteins, so I don't see what the point of farming insects would be.
I can't wait until lab meat growing becomes mature and industrial. Always getting the nicest piece of the animal, cheaply, with no killing. I love the future...
Countdown to breeding larger insects for human consumption starts in ...
It is only because you have been brain-washed by the rightwing media that you believe otherwise.
I will use that as my signature from now on, ok?
Isn't their cousine bad enough?
Or we could not eat meat.
Or less meat.
Instead of coming up with moronic stuff of this kind, hoping that people will start eating insects, start a vegetarian movement. At least that has some chances of getting implemented.
Many fish species naturally eat insects. AFAIK on the other hand current fish farms mostly use smaller wild fishes. Breeding insects coold be used to farm fish eating insects that are either useful for selling to humans or to feed other carnivores fishes instead of the current wild fishes.
Everyday, our bright future looks more appealing.
Eating insects is quite widespread, apart from few areas of cultural oddity (highly visible though; and we do eat other invertebrates), not to mention at least an order of magnitude more efficient from vertebrate farm animals when it comes to transformation of resources into meat.
In the form of industrially-produced meat paste (for a start) it would be probably hard or impossible to taste a difference; maybe military could introduce it to its diets - I imagine grunts can't whine quite as much as a typical consumer, and it would be one good part of the puzzle towards solving this, might get acceptance from there.
As a matter of fact - you all eat insects every day; standards for grain, flour, vegetables, etc. generally speak of "maximum number of insect body parts per unit"
(and feeding the world in a sustainable way - not exactly an Idle-grade material)
One that hath name thou can not otter
In places where large clouds of flies congregate, such as Lake Malawi, the locals net millions of flies and compress them into little cakes. Handy protein packs. I'm sure they may have some nice recipes.
Hopefully there will be a lot of (good) jokes about the ability of the average consumer to "stomach" (ha ha) these critters.
However "unappetizing" that prospect may be, why not give them to Fido or Socks? From what I've seen of dog/cat food, it is so heavily processesd, flavored and dyed that they, being unable to read the labels, may not be able to tell the difference. I don't know what other domesticated/farmed animals are fed animal protein (fish farms?) but the amount could be significant.
Just trying to take a "bite" out of the problem of global warming.
So which makes the better BBQ spare rubs? Beetles or caterpillars?
It would be quite interesting to know how succeptable insects are for infections if farmed. One of the problems with livestock is the prophelactic use of antibiotics. This has its effect on the symbiosis further down the chain. If insects could provide a untainted protein source, then it shouldn't be too bad. We eat prawns already, don't we?
!
...is called overpopulation.
Do you really want to live on a planet along with ~20 billion people, eating squished insects (aka Soylent Yellow (tm))? I know I don't. Why are we trying to make life so uncomfortable, ugly and boring? We likely wouldn't have most of today's problems (like global warming, scarcity of natural resources, energy problems,...) if we had a population of say ~200 million. Maybe not every business would be efficient or possible anymore and technology would probably advance not as fast as today, but would that really matter? Isn't that a much more appealing future?
Hmm, you come over all emotional. And not all that knowledgeable either.
There is a growing number of people in America that eat insects - why not check it out instead of airing your bigotry and insulting people in other cultures?
What is disgusting is simply a matter of what you are used to; humans being apes with less hair means that we throughout our evolution have eaten insects much more than chordates, so our metabolism is much more at home with insect protein and fat.
Some domestic animals are even incapable of reproduction without our assistance...
One that hath name thou can not otter
At least they taste better than tofu.
In the west we continue to produce cattle and eat meat not because we need it , we could perfectly replace it with an array of protein from various source, we do it because we like the taste. And trust me on that one, some insect are not too bad grilled, some are downright disgusting, some are "neutral" , I tried about anything from spider to cricket, to various crawling and creeping stuff, and nothing, nothing can replace the texture and taste of my angus filet.
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I don't suppose they considered the difficulty in getting people to go along with this idea.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Hakuna matata
Insects are arthropods - as are lobsters, shrimps etc. Lobster is not commonly regarded as disgusting and horrible. Can you justify why a land-dwelling arthropod is more disgusting and horrifying than a sea-dwelling one? The insect could very well be a pure vegetarian, whereas many of the sea-dwelling ones we eat are scavengers (e.g. crabs) which flourish on carrion and sewage.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Maybe we do not NEED to be 7 billion people on this planet. Yea, there I said it.
I'm not advocating genocide, but we would start with (1) two children per family. One child per family causes too big tragedy if that child is lost, and causes cultural strangeness in some countries where the families try to make that one child be a boy. Two is better.
Considering not every family wants two children, and not everyone creates a family, this will stop growth and begin a new process of population reduction.
Next, (2) encouraging traits that cause women to have their children later in life. Education of women, equal employment of women: while it's in the name of women, it also causes them to have their child later in life (late 20-s, early 30-s) rather than early (mid-teens-s to early 20-s). This means about 10, up to 20 years less "overlap" between generations, so slower reproduction means a lesser number of people.
Cap and trade is too easily corrupted, especially with "offsets", even if well intended, so let's face it: (3) we need to reduce some other taxes, and tax greenhouse production at some point, with no possibility for the business filling in papers for offsets. The money from these taxes can then be used by the government to produce additional offsets themselves.
So, just three things in no particular order, I'd gladly see in this world, before we're forced to eat cockroaches. Just saying, mmk?
Remember the ribwich?
And how Krusty said in the end when asked what animal it was made of "Think smaller. Think more legs"?
It's all in the commercial, I tell you. Just don't tell people what they're eating, slap a lot of MSG-loaded sauce on it and it will sell.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It might go a long way to help offset famine and food shortages around the world. On the face of it, how could it not be more efficient than raising cattle or pigs.
But I'll stick with steak and bacon, thanks.
M.
Great presentation on the subject. There are more advantages than what is described in TFA.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects.html
We are what we don't poop.
rewriting history since 2109
its a bitch to produce, bitch to ship, store, distribute. to eat, to digest, and creates a lot of wear & tear on the metabolism while at it. we are at a point in civilization where we do not need to continue habits of a hunter gatherer society anymore. just do away with it, and reinvest all that money and effort to something else that is easier to maintain and less 10,000 BC .
Read radical news here
How about we just kill some people instead, to remove the overpopulation?
Or everyone could just become a vegetarian/vegan.
I know everyone hates the guy who brings this up on every article even remotely related to meat, but there are plenty of benefits (it's healthier, meat is incredibly wasteful to produce and whether or not you agree, some people think that killing animals for pleasure is immoral) and few if any drawbacks (except for the inevitable "But I like BACOOOOON").
Funny how ideologies overlap.
The move to reduce global warming is (in the US) associated with the left side of the political spectrum, especially with environmentalism.
But there's another strain of thought on the left, also associated with environmentalism: The population control movement, given a boost by Paul Erlich. Even beyond that, there's the voluntary extinction movement.
For these folks, catastrophic global warming should be seen as a godsend, and they should be voting for (what is considered) the head-in-the-sand policies of the GOP.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
What a fantastic idea! The mere though of eating insects is probably enough to put everyone off meat so we won't have to farm any meat. Perhaps it'll be even be enough to put people off food altogether so we can give all our food to 3rd world countries. World problems solved!
humans being apes with less hair
Technically, an average human has more hair follicles on his or her body than an average chimpanzee. The type of hair is responsible for visible differences, for "nakedness".
One that hath name thou can not otter
Seriously, life is not that great that would justify eating bugs.
Cows are very efficient at converting grass inputs into human-usable protein, in the form of milk.
Cattle eat grass and weeds (high-quality protein!), and can operate on rocky slopes where John Deere can't farm.
While all cows start their life in a pastures, agribusiness finishes cattle on feedlots because it's much quicker to fatten animals up on grain than grass. ConAgra doesn't care that grain-finished beef has 1/2 as much beta-carotene, 1/5 as much Vitamin A, and 1/5 as much Vitamin E as cows that have eaten grass from start to finish.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
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Yes, I'm also an ignorant bigot, because I disregard replacing the westernized diet with a breatharian, fruitarian, or raw-food diet. I didn't say that nobody eats insects. I just said that it's fucking stupid to suggest that people are going to opt for replacing meat with insects - outside of the few nutjobs who currently do it, because it's now trendier than bragging about being a tofu-only-eater.
Our ancestors also flung their own shit around for much longer than we've been primarily hairless. That doesn't mean doing so today isn't gross or that replacing handshaking with it is realistic.
What I should have said if I gave a fuck about appealing to the Slashdot masses is "oh, golly, this is such a delightful idea! I haven't been this excited since the Postal Service's last single!".
But, hey, if you're overly eager to help a bunch of scientists promote their idiotic idea as some new viable commercial industry, I couldn't fucking care less. I'm going to go have a real steak, now.
Last time I was in Thailand, I made a point of trying various fried insects, which is very common staple in South Thailand (not so much around Bangkok). I was surprised at how good they tasted. However, not at all comparable with meat. It's completely different but not worse, IMHO.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
The rest of us will be eating healthy Ramen Noodles.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Animal protein is not necessary for a healthy human life. You can get all essential amino-acids you need either from a combination of sources (e.g. the classic Fabaceae or Nuts + Poaceae or Gramineae, which still is the only protein source for a majority of the humanity and was even more dominant in prehistoric times), or if you prefer a single source: some species of Chenopodium (e.g. quinoa), some species of Fabaceae (e.g. broad beans or soy beans), some species of Mould (e.g. Quorn, tempeh), some species of Algea, Cyanobacteria and Lichen (e.g. Spirulina and some lichen and seaweed eaten in Northern Europe during famines).
Something that is hard to find outside foodstuff based on animals is vitamin B12. Fortunately the human body can store vitamin B12 in large enough quantities to keep a human healthy for years without an intake, e.g. the historical intake of large quantities of animal foodstuff only once or twice a year in most of (what is today) Sweden is more then enough. The only vegan source of B12 is fermented vegetables, where the quantities of B12 is very small and demand a large daily intake if it is the only source. Vegetarian sources of B12 is diary products and eggs. Current sources with low impact on green house gases is (some, but not most) livestock shellfish and insects, but as most people in the Western culture pee out almost all of the B12 they consume, the intake could be minimized enough so that it isn't really necessary to think about what greenhouse gases the B12 sources cause.
Lobsters, "crawdads", and shrimp are disgusting. People will eat just about anything if you convince them that it's something only to be enjoyed by the upper crust (how else does one explain caviar?).
If you want to pepper your own diet with crickets roaches, go for it. Just don't suggest that it's somehow going to magically replace the diet about a billion people already currently have any more than you expect people to replace their current cow/pig/whatever diet with dog (which some people would say having an aversion to eating makes them an emotional, ignorant, bigot and I'm okay with that label in that case).
This is just a group of scientists looking to make a breakthrough and jumpstart a new industry - no different than if some jackass pointed out how sustainable seaweed is and that we should all transition to a seaweed diet. Perhaps what people see as some over-reaction to the concept is actually my contempt for the modern trend of embracing ridiculous new dietary fads, because it somehow makes people better than others and worldly. Look, I'm a big fan of the idea of just having a pill that you swallow twice a day that takes care of everything for you. I'm also a big fan of the idea that we'll eventually just be able to generate "meat" of any type right out of thin air by re-composing atoms all replicator-like. In fact, that's likely to happen long before you find the majority of the population in America, Canada, the UK, etc sitting down for a delicious nightly plate of bugs.
(I definitely won't argue that beetles would be any worse than the majority of the fast food crap people already eat, of course.)
Here in the UK we have something called "Quorn", based on mycoprotein. Which I guess is some kind of protein created by fungi. It's even sold in stores and served in staff canteens. I would also guess that the efficiency factor is quite high - fungi aren't known for eating ten times their body weight and crapping out what they eat in order to grow.
Discovering that insects produce less CO2 than cattle is neat, but it's not like it gives you equally tasty meat, and if the taste doesn't matter then Quorn is probably more effective.
When I eat a lobster, I skip the shell and the icky gunk in the middle.
It seems I'm expected to eat the insects whole, shell and icky gunk included. That's a different deal entirely.
A nice fat juicy bug steak. Joy.
While it's true that poikilotherms have a far more efficient conversion ratio when it comes to food because they're not burning off all that energy just to maintain body temperature like hot blooded animals do, I am surprised that the first answer from these scientists is culturally unacceptable (well in most western cultures anyway) insects. I mean, what happened to fish? I'm sure that the difference in energy consumption between insects and fish is not all that great when compared to say a cow, sheep or pig. Basically what you feed is what you get in weight gain, it only takes around 1.2kg of food (in some species) to produce 1kg of muscle in fish. That's very efficient. Plus pretty much every culture in the world already eats fish.
My only thought is that said scientists were worried about the huge water consumption of aquaculture. However they have completely failed to consider the up and coming field of aquaponics which is extremely water efficient (the only loss is evaporation). With aquaponics you also get delicious veggies with your protein - you have to; it's part of the system that cleans your water to keep your fish healthy. Hey but what do I know, I've only met the guy that invented it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Leets go further and simply produce Soylent?
The easiest way to make food from a grassy hill with poor soil is a grazing animal. Farm equipment requires flat land. Humans can't live on grass. What else would you do, bulldoze the hills and dump on lots of chemicals to make food crops grow?
Now consider the beans you so love. What about the rest of the plant? You're wasting nearly all of the plant if you don't eat it, but you can't really eat it because you're human. Feed that to an animal though, and now you have more food.
Is this a joke? Is this from TheOnion? I'll stick with my T-Bone steak. Enjoy your bugs. And bankruptcy. ...fucking idiots...
I've never donated pie to support development of a Firefox extension before, but I'm willing to learn. :-)
I would sample insect-based food, for the same reasons that I eat foods made with yeast, if...
a) I was certain it wouldn't harm me,
b) if it had been killed with minimal suffering, and
c) if I could figure out how to cook it in a tasty way.
Nearly all modern meat production and fishery fails test b), so I rarely eat meat.
Real life isn't like a 4x strategy game where you can only focus on one possible advance at a time. Some people are thinking about sustainable foods, some about ways to stop pollution, some about more efficient ways to use other resources. There are even subgroups of each of those, looking at different ways to accomplish each of these things.
Your (not at all charming) naivete about who eats bugs and who doesn't aside, the fact that it squicks you out is pretty much irrelevant. Lots of foods that are seen as luxury items were originally considered food suitable only for the poor (because they looked hideous - I'm thinking of lobsters), and many foods we see as staples are actually quite disgusting if you spend even a fraction of a second thinking about where they come from.
As to the urine thing - what do you think you're drinking every time you have water? Recycled pee. What do you think you're breathing in every time you inhale? Particles of poop, and other things. Maybe if you educated yourself (or quit lying to yourself about just how gross the environment you live in is) you'd be less squeamish about eating bugs and able to appreciate things you haven't been conditioned to appreciate your whole life.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Most cattle here around are produced on field which are not used for wheat production that years (rotation) or downright never used for meat production (lotta sheep rising area are full of rock, don't matter for the sheep but make the field improper to any wheat/legumes mass production). There are some food fed to the cattle, but such food would not be produced if the cattle was not here to eat it up. Best example of it are some non-sweet corn, which are produced just for cattle feeding, because producing anything else (food/wheat) would be at a *LOSS*.
The bottom line is that we can , in the west, grow non feed stuff for cattle , and be inefficient at food production, because we are over producing and swamping all otehr market ! So yes, meat production is inneficient per hectare, but whore care when efficiency is not a factor in area where food is overproduced ? Remember the hunger problem is not a problem of producing not enough food, it is a distribution problem on where the food is produced, and where it is needed. Also quite a political problem, as when we *dump* our price on food (remember we over produce) we can sometime destroy local market in place where agriculture is not as extended, and destroy local people living.
In conclusion, all the rethoric on meat being inefficient , is rather missing the point. The place which produce the most meat, don't have a food production quantity problem. On the contrary we already destroy meat, legumes, fruit, and milk by the tons, and pay farmer to *NOT* produce more !
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
They are more efficient partly because of their coldbloodedness according to the article. In places with sufficiently long growing seasons that won't be a problem. But you will have to transport the stuff to places with longer cold seasons, adding inefficiency. Cattle have built in warmers.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Unless it's just trillions of mealworms, what happens when 100 billion cockroaches escape from the farm down the road? Or locusts?
Really--why stop at farming insects--or farming anything at all if your only consideration is sustainability?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I guess this puts pestilence in a whole new light. From the perspective of somebody who only has grains to eat all the time, insects would be a boon if you were willing to eat them. God gives you locusts, make locusts and honey, right?
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Instead of preparing for ever-increasing misery, where space on the surface of the Earth soon enough become scarce, we would better reduce the human population. Stop giving birth to so many children. Would a negative child benefit help? Better of with few children, worse off with many. Perhaps it could offset the need for having children that can take care of you when you are old, that I am guessing is present in at least parts of the world.
At least, nobody will never ever complain about a bug in his soup.
Achille Talon
Hop!
...once they work the bugs out.
...with insects as food. That could be a giant incentive to give it a try here in the states. Once the true potential of insects as an alternative and one that allows people to avoid heart disease and cancer, that could shift the balance in the market towards taxation of meat rather than subsidies. Elimination of greenhouse gases would just be a bonus.
As to whether or not Americans can find a palate for insects, I'm not worried. American food processors have figured out ways to incorporate soy and corn into thousands of products without giving any hint to the customer. It's unfortunate that ignorance of the food supply is so prevalent here, but with insects, that could actually be an advantage.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
See, you only need to change one letter on the Chick-fil-A cows' signs.
That was easy.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
So you can just suck on my cock, fuck you very much!
Think the real estate market is bad now? OK, imagine that the population is shrinking. Actually, I don't see why a bank would even offer a loan under those conditions. Home value plunges.
Of course, human evolution selects for people with a desire to foil your plans. Before long, nobody will even want birth control because everybody will be descended from those who wanted lots of children.
I know a lot of people that think Lobster, Shrimp and other sea insects as totally disgusting.
do you consider monkey brains to be yummy? some people do. People will eat anything.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
scientists, I advocate you start eating only bugs. And the sooner you die, the better. Less greenhouse gas, right?
For the love of God... This is the most stupid pledge of an environmentalist to date. Replace steaks with bugs or your planet will die! Farting cows, that's the problem with environment today. Really. I mean... REALLY?
People in the US (maybe 'the West') consider shrimp a delicacy, and what is a shrimp but a marine cockroach? It's all in the marketing.
As good as it sounds, eating insects just bugs me to no end since I didn't grow up doing it.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
First, I wonder if a company can affordable manage to mass produce insect meat on a global scale. I also wonder if this is a greener method of farming protein. Raising the insects may product less CO2, but I didn't see anything about the machinery required to process them.
Their study, published in the online journal PLoS, suggests that a move towards insect farming could result in a more sustainable — and affordable — form of meat production.
:P but why don't they try to solve the greenhouse gas reduction (different food for the animals, trying to harvest their gases, etc.) instead of trying to totally replace the problem and convert meat eaters into bug eaters. Make them eat insects for a few years, that should be their prize for this study.
Sustainable? Probably. Affordable? Maybe. Meat production? What? Geez man, replace those study writers with insects, that would be better. Maybe insects don't fart
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
The cow-bugs will get swept up into a whirlwind. Kip will go try to rustle them up to win Amy's love. The plot will lead to the Martian's lair in Olympus Mons where it is found that Amy's parents have traded a huge diamond for the the Martian's land. The Martians respect Kip for being able to ride a flying cow-bug and decide to leave Mars with their riches.
Their they're doing there hair.
I'll bite when an insect tastes as good as free range lamb chops.
I don't get it. Cows do not eat oil. They eat plants. And plants are "recycled CO2". Do they really -add- CO2 to atmosphere?
You're a primate. Look at the diets of other primates living in the wild. Your organism might be somewhat better adapted to diet dominated by insect / invertebrate meat than vertebrate one. In fact, considering that the latter was probably a relative rarity for most of our evolution, the current (very recent) levels of its availability and consumption can be more aptly described as "ridiculous new dietary fag".
One that hath name thou can not otter
When I have to switch to insects from mammals than I would rather stop eating meat at all. I eat that stuff because it is delicious not because it is absolutely necessary to eat meat. So insects are no replacement for a cow or a pig or a chicken or a spring bock or a sheep or a mus or a crocodile (ok chicken and crocodile are no mammals, even though they are delicious).
Thai's have been eating insects for some time.
I think if there were wide spread negative effects they would have been discovered there by now.
Still, one of the things I wont eat in Thailand, some Thai girls love them.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Scientists Advocate Replacing Cattle With Insects
Stop putting words in my mouth (and no insects either, thank you). Would it really be that difficullt to write "some scientists" or "one loony scientists" instead of expressions like the above that (though technically ambiguous) to most people sounds like that there is a consensus in the scientific community?
Did anyone else read that headline and flash on Fallout series radroaches?
Or is it just me?
There is no 'i' in team, but there is in fiasco...
rule by the demos - the people
How can a person both rule and be ruled at the same time? If I rule, then logically, I cannot be subject to the rule of others. And if I am subject to the rule of others, then logically, I am not the ruler.
Anybody else feel like they'd probably prefer Soylent Green?
Of course, it must be said that most food safety laws allow a certain percentage of insect parts in stuff that winds up on grocery store shelves.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Its a good snack, but they all taste the same. Crickets(Takatan) are best i think or maybe the grasshoppers. Mengda (water bugs) Are way too meaty, they are ok crushed in spicy sallad but not just deep fried, like the other bugs. Female Mengda usally also have eggs. My ex girldfriend used to buy them when ever she saw them for sale. Always very happy smiling and saying "Have eggs! Delicious!".
Some worms are good too.
I live in Thailand >_
I don't think I'm quite ready for a cricket burger with cheese and two strips of cicada bacon.
Surely it's going to be a lot of time lost attaching a million of them to a plough in the morning.
And I pity the poor farmer who has to milk enough to get a pint for his breakfast.
Working for the (other) man
I doubt that insect meat will EVER be acceptable in the west, though it is eaten in parts of Asia. Also it would be against the dietary laws of both Jews and Muslims to eat insects.
How many cowboys will have to retrained in the use of their lasso?
Bold is my change.
Insects are animals - as are lobsters, shrimps etc. Lobster is not commonly regarded as disgusting and horrible. Can you justify why a land-dwelling animal is more disgusting and horrifying than a sea-dwelling one? The insect could very well be a pure vegetarian, whereas many of the sea-dwelling ones we eat are scavengers (e.g. crabs) which flourish on carrion and sewage.
What was your point? Going up in the classification in order to find a common trait is irelevent for this matter of taste. Also the fact that lobster is a carrion-eaters only make it a more efficient delicious food source. It, directly, turn waste into goods.
I'd rather grill up the scientists.
If the the nutritionists and global climate scientists have taught the world anything over the past 50 years, it is that THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THE F$%(^ THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.
Sure eating bugs would be better for the environment. For that matter we could become vegetarians, stop over populating, stop driving gas guzzlers, stop buying junk we don't need. How about stopping wars?
The trick is not finding more efficient ways to serve human needs, but to change human values, and behaviour.
Soylent Green: Why not get rid of the largest producers of green house gases, lower world population and have a new food source?
This is an example of academic dumb think. They've lost touch with the real world. Try herding insects. Try raising insects outdoors on pasture. Try keeping the insects out of your neighbor's yard. Maybe this is better than confinement animal feeding operations but pastured livestock are orders of magnitude better than either. We raise livestock using managed rotational grazing techniques on mountain pastures. This is land you can't build CAFOs on and you can't crop like down in the flat lands. Yet the sunlight grows grass which our livestock turn into high quality lipids and proteins - meanwhile we're improving the soil and sequestering carbon. Too bad people will actually take the word of academics like this. They're long on theory and short on reality.
I for one, am not in the moode for a grasshopper steak. Where's the prime rib on them?
These scientists prove that Education != Common sense.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
there's a cow in my bug soup!
I know a lot of people in developing countries consume insects as a staple form of food, the squirm factor for western audiences would be quite high however.
Western audiences do consume stuff that's pretty close to insects.
I guess the right way to market it would be to call it "something shrimp". Few people would to the research to find out exactly what that means.
"I'd like a Scrab Cakes with my Paramite Pie side."
Can Tasty Treats be far behind? Or Soylent Green?
What about cruise ships?
Estimates are that a 3,000-passenger ship generates the air pollution equivalent of more than 12,000 cars in a single day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal_dye
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
he did say less hair, not fewer hairs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Buggalo_Roam
Sure they may have less of an environmental impact than a cattle ranch or a hog farm, but do the insects taste good? The whole reason why I eat meat from livestock animals is because they are tasty. Sure they may have some nutritional value, but that comes second.
If insects taste like ass or burnt-up peanuts or whatever, they're still not going to appeal to me one bit. Ditto with how appealing the texture is.
But if they're like some other arthropods that actually are tasty (shrimp, lobster, crabs) then they might have a fair chance of becoming part of my diet.
Free Range eggs also taste much better than factory eggs. Not just a bit better, MUCH better.
No sig today...
...is not people.
From what I've heard, McDonald's is already halfway there...
I'm just posting to remove an accidental moderation. Slashdot needs a code overhaul... this sort of thing shouldn't be necessary. And while I'm at it: TONE DOWN THE AJAX, TACO!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I'm calling bullshit
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Would hate to have the PR job on that one.... Would you the pork or would you the locust? Nice idea, but good luck convincing more than 0.001% of the population to go that route!
....it's what's for dinner!
It would put an end to the old trick of placing a cockroach (half of a cockroach even better) on your plate in order to get a free meal.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Horns and Hooves.
Otherwise it's not food.
It's what food eats.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
be the year we eat insect-steaks?
Have we learnt nothing from the past?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/3179101952_3f729a500a.jpg
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/538/538263/starship-troopers-20040812003517858_640w.jpeg
bugs are made from disgusting bug. no thanks.
in other news, scientists from the Netherlands are made from soylent green... .
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The "Bug, it's what's for dinner!" campaign...
That is all.
Chimps and Bonobo hunt monkeys for food regularly, Gorilla's fish. While a daily diet of ~half meat is excessive, regularly eating meat has been a staple of our diet for longer than we have been human.
I unless you are a 12 year old playing counterstrike 12 hours a day, I think you misspelled "fad".
Perhaps insects could be a replacement for fishmeal, an important component in feeds for both aquaculture and livestock. They use the fishmeal to provide protein to the livestock/salmon. One of the persistent criticisms of aquaculture is that it takes several kilograms of wild-caught forage/bait fish (mostly anchovies) to be processed into feed to make one kilo of salmon. Same with feed for livestock made from fishmeal. I suspect it would not be too hard to grind up grasshoppers instead of anchovies.
We eat tofu once a week and I'd rather switch to full-time consumption of tofu rather than continue my carnivorous ways with this substitute.
A much easier and tested way is to simply use a vegan diet
reinforced with supplements for the essential nutrients that
are hard to get from plants.
This has considerably lower CO2 footprint than an omnivorous diet,
but anybody that wishes to try it needs to know that supplementing
some vitamins is an absolute must for a vegan diet to work. In particular
vitamin B12 has no reliable plant sources since it is only made from
bacteria, and failing to supplement it while on a vegan diet WILL cause
a dangerous deficiency.
There are other things one may want to supplement in a vegan diet as well,
but they are more dependent on individual factors and your eating habits.
Tumors tend to grow and adapt. We can probably breed them to feed off of HFCS in a bioreactor type vat and harvest a meat like substance from them.
Call me when they figure out insect bacon. Then we might have a deal...
since no one said it - this process has got to be buggy as hell
It's more about relative frequency; and AFAIK, while great apes obviously don't abstain from vertebrate meat, it's not exactly a foundation of their diet. Supposedly less than other (usually less "labor" intensive?) options, anyway.
(yeah, I also think I misspelled it; might be a case of words having less immediately obvious meaning for non-native speaker, and false sense of correctness from spell-checker...)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Until they can make grasshoppers moo, I'll pass.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
This is only reasonable if you consider bugs to be meat.
I can see insushi bars popping up all over the world to serve the raw insect delicacies! Num, Num!
Roach tartar anyone?
Like the beaver, it's just Dam one thing after another
With USA being in the top 3 most populated, and a relatively low infant mortality rate... (46th of 224 countries). Your solution may work for developing countries, but not for those already developed. With states constantly refusing public school sex ed classes (Legislator's vote down sex ed bill), major politicians supporting absitnence as the only contraceptive and leaders whom also condemn masturbation... Our population is in trouble. My highschool sex ed class was little more than a P.E. Coach talking about how he used to have tons of money and then lost it all.
soylent grey is Quorra !!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The answer might surprise you, as it is paradoxal : get rid of infant mortality. This has been proven in every developing country : the FIRST step to reducing population is to completely eliminate infant mortality
It is a fact that lower infant mortality is correlated with lower number of children per family. But the real question is which causes the other? Which came first?
I can see a clear rationale for arguing that smaller families cause lower infant mortality rates. Parents can take better care of their children if there aren't too many mouths to feed.
OTOH, I cannot see people having children as redundancy against premature death. That would imply in a long term family planning and those people have no instruction on family planning. If they had, they wouldn't have that many children.
Ya sure that'll sell well @ Kmart and Walmart!! Hello shoppers we are having a blue light special on on on um um fresh ground BUGS!! I recommend staying out of the way of the mass of shoppers runnin for the door!!!
Sig?! Sig?! We don't need no stinking sig!!
mcdonald's corporation: "go on..."
patron: "Waiter, what is this fly doing in my soup?"
waiter: "Yes, I know. You have the greenbottle fly chowder. Is there a problem with it?" (what, were you expecting him to retort with "the backstroke?!")
patron: "There wouldn't be, except I ordered from the vegan menu."
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Insects will probably never become "food" on a wide spread basis. But it will and should replace the generic protein ingredients normally derived from milk or soy. Genetically engineer an insect species to have ideal properties, mash them up, cook them down, paste or powder, and add to the plethora of processed "foods" that humans subsist on.
Cheap, clean, adaptable...an endless supply of nutrients that grow themselves exponentially. Soylent green was sensational and unrealistic. Insect-derived nutrients are necessary and inevitable.
California has a 1 year budget cycle that has to be fought out all the time which wastes time; it should be 2 year cycles. It takes 2/3 vote to get budgets which means its not majority rule its super majority and it has been in worse shape for years than the broken filibuster US senate has been for just 2 years. They don't have a filibuster problem, they wrote the problem INTO the process.
Most the CA budget is set by laws not by the budgeting process. This makes it even more difficult to adapt/change quickly because so much of it is allocated in a distributed way that is time consuming to touch and independent of other budgetary concerns. If you want to cut something its a big fight that has to happen outside the budget debate so the actual planning of just how much you need to compromise among many areas is removed-- its hard to say I need to cut down on eating out when I can't also consider all the other items I spend money on and make a relative judgment. This is why budgeting needs to have a lot of things available on the table during the process.
Taxes are based on the economy. bad economy. people are so selfish and short sighted they see surplus and want it back instead of saving for rainy days. We can run on debt until times get better; however, the reality is that people in the know have figured out that we will never get back to the good times of decades past so they are for a change thinking ahead; while others just want to gut public service from the government because they view government as for the corporations and not for the people.
Then there is the illegal immigrant problem in CA which harms the economy and lowers tax revenue while adding government expenses. sorry but that is how it is. Make them legal and you boost revenue and the economy; however, then the cheap bastards will hire more illegals (because they are cheap to exploit) so you need to punish people who exploit illegals (or at least make them pay min wage and register with gov for tax purposes.) Now, I don't think the problem is #1 but its a contributing factor and hardly anybody can reasonably debate the issue because emotional mobs on either side (or both) go after them. The immigrant quota system is totally wrong but I don't see that getting fixed anytime soon either; its too long term for citizens to contemplate.
CA also needs to raise taxes. selfish pricks want everything for nothing; well the rich want no taxes and think they need nothing because they have all the money (yet seem to forget police/fire and tons of gov services they do benefit from directly; probably unaware of what an indirect benefit even is.)
CA has HIGH sales taxes. This should be lowered and income taxes should rise. I shouldn't have to explain the benefits of this; if you need it, then you probably need to learn some more.
CA doesn't get enough federal AID. They pay more in federal taxes than they get back unlike every southern state-- CA state may be broke but its people support all the broke ass states in the nation who get tons of federal support to keep them from going broke. I'd be just fine with CA protecting its people from underpaying their federal income tax - which they could do.... what a fight that would be! I'm ok because I'm in MN and we also support the loser states federally so losing CA's money wouldn't change it much for us; we are shafted by the south as well.
Some people seem to revel in CA going down but they are an economic powerhouse helping prop this nation up; they are 8th in the world if considered with other countries. That is a big economy people! They can afford some tax increases with a few cuts-- its not so much about cutting as it is the system is broken and that results in these problems. Common sense is to TREAT THE DISEASE not just amputate (and become like Louisiana; government does impact the well being of the state, its not just the weather in CA that attracts people.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Cricket McNuggets
yummmmy
Just look at that picture. That is sure to win everyone over. Roasted bug on a stick with what looks to be cups of urine on the side. Bug a la urine cup anyone? I'm feeling tempted here.
Why not go whole-hog, and engineer us a slig?
Think of all the fights it will solve over who gets a drumstick during Thanksgiving Dinner. There should be enough drumsticks for everyone!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
First of all, "harmful greenhouse gases" emitted by cattle is a bunch of hooey. But who is going to choose a shrink-wrapped styrofoam tray of bugs over a thick, juicy steak? Oh....unless the global warming nutjobs in positions of power make the choice for us. God help us all!
Lobster is not commonly regarded as disgusting and horrible. Can you justify why a land-dwelling arthropod is more disgusting and horrifying than a sea-dwelling one?
Yes, several reasons.
First, sea-dwelling creatures tend to be able to grow larger than land-dwelling relatives because of the aquatic environment and its muted gravitational effects. Lobster are large enough that we can clean them before cooking them and then split them open and eat only the parts that are tasty. Even popcorn shrimp are big enough that we only eat the tail and we first remove the vein, legs, and shell.
Secondly, the water tends to flush the creatures' wastes away from them. Yes, it means they are living in a dilute soup of their own wastes, but not only is it very dilute but it's also easy to wash off them with clean water before you consume them. Land creatures tend to have dirt and/or oils (which in turn pick up dust) which concentrate on them rather than being continually diluted into their environment, and which aren't as easily washed off.
No one pick up on Them!
Soylent Green is weevil
The taste of meat is very strongly influenced by environmental factors. This includes both what the animal eats as well as the conditions under which it is slaughtered, though the latter has less influence than the former. I grew up on a sheep farm on a diet consisting primarily of meat. I avoid lamb and mutton that is not from our farm because it just does not taste the same. I don't mind beef, poultry, pork and venison from other areas.
The vegetation where I grew up is quite flavourful and this provides a distinctive flavour to the meat. Most of our meat is prepared without any spices as there is no need. The vegetation has a bigger influence on the taste of the meat than breed. I prefer a different breed of sheep reared on our vegetation to one of our standard breed reared in a different part of the world. The fact that farmers from our area get quite a high premium for their meat suggests that others agree.
Some abattoirs use trained goats "to lead the lambs to the slaughter". This is to avoid stressing the sheep by herding them unnecessarily. Stress releases adrenalin that definitely affects the quality of the meat, as does lactic acid. Lactic acid is normally more noticeable with venison, but I suspect this has more to do with sheep being tame and game being wild.
Given the right climatic conditions (happens very rarely) on the farm, we get a proliferation of a particularly fragrant flower. When the sheep graze on this it too affects the smell and taste of the meat. My wife finds it quite disturbing when she opens the freezer and it smells more like an air freshener than meat.
especially while eating meatloaf. it was a mistake and I am without a lunch right now after regurgitating it into the trash bin and I am not talking about the virtual kind.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
So now you will want a flies in your soup? This seems a big ridiculous. You will have to pry ribeyes from my cold dead hands.
Can't agree more - I always like to hug, cuddle and run around in the fields with my lambs and goats before I slaughter them; I even help with the reproduction procedure if there's a shortage! It's so nice to know that they had a good time before they were butchered. I think I'll patent it : "Happy Meat: Cause it had a good time before you ate and burped it"
pound per pound they are of less nutrient and calorie value than their mammal food cousins. Societies that eat insects usually developed the habit because of a LACK of good food sources. In places where larger game was available or could be grazed the people did not eat insect life.
shazam, man, there have been millions of trials comparing the taste of grass fed natural pasture beef to feedlot corn stuffed beef. There's no comparison. I raise cattle, and eat what I raise. Grassfed has way less fat, less of that consumer fraud "marbling" they faked out people into accepting (marbling is marketing BS, it is what happens when you confine cattle and stuff them with junk calories of corn), way more taste, etc, plus, it is more tender than even that "marbeling" fraud.
People have been eating their own raised cattle for thousands of years, it's only in the last hundred or so that we have had these abominable gross feedlots and crap beef.
There is just no comparison.
What IS hard is selling the stuff, as most people today simply refuse to buy anything in bulk and do not have decent sized chest freezers, they do "just in time" shopping, and never have more than a few days to a week maybe worth of food at home. a half a cow-a side-takes some cash to buy and space to store. People want to trade convenience of only buying a little package or two, for much better quality and better taste. Actually having a well stocked pantry or larder is now not "cool" or something. I mean, we do, but most people, especially urbanites, don't bother/limit themselves to living in little apartments where they can't, or etc. If they do buy quality, they WILL pay way through the nose, serious big bucks, compared to just going out and finding a decent side of beef.
It is just like having a big garden and having fresh picked tomatoes over some cardboard tomato picked and shipped green for a thousand miles.
For people who have never ever had fresh garden produce, nor grass fed natural pasture beef, perhaps they need a scientific study, but it really is a waste of time you know.
Just assume all of us hundreds of millions of people all over the planet and back down through history who HAVE and currently DO enjoy really fresh decent food are not lying to you.
I mean how are you going to get the meat out from inside the tiny exoskeletons?
> As to the urine thing - what do you think you're drinking every time you have water? Recycled pee.
Uh, maybe if you're a die hard homeopath and think that the H2O remembers being pee. But the stuff falling out of the sky, being pumped out of the wells, or coming out of the good end of the water recycling plant doesn't have the pee parts in it anymore...
You might as well claim everything you eat is recycled human. It's about as true.
"...for human consumption..."
-er-
would that be consumption "By" human or consumption "Of" human...
now and then we read articles about new researches that unveil animals behaviour under a more and more humanzied way, we read about their social bonds, new skills, unforseen communication abilities, higher empathy levels, recently, deliberate use of drugs(plants) for 'recreational' purposes. But yet we fail in considering breeding a cow just to shortly after shot a nail in their brain and devour it , as an abomination. We should spend billions (and maybe it's not needed a so great amount) into modifing vegetables so they taste and feel like chicken , and I dont care if it's not 100% the same, we have brains , we can choose. For those of you who think slaughterhouses are nice places and everyone there is playing the good boy, I advice you to google for it.. and watch some videos, if you are worthy living being you will at least agree that the less we kill and eat our fellow animals, the better.. as for the insects, as they usually lack a central brain and their neural system is so relatively simple, I would advise to use them as a transitory solution...
This ant for one welcomes our new human overlords.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Lobster is not commonly regarded as disgusting and horrible.
[citation needed]
In my experience, lobster is not universally but most certainly is commonly regarded as disgusting. Might be a regional thing...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Isn't insect farming what Amy's parents do in Futurama?
From the first article:
However, if the idea of eating meat grown in a lab doesn't appeal to you, there is another option.
So people too dainty to eat lab grown meat are going to strap on a bib and chow down on insects?
Cattle, sheep and goats are the most efficient harvesters of range and pasture grass.
The next study will discover that the large number of plastic containers needed to keep the bugs from escaping consume too much plastic and this counters the saving observed in the previous study.
I will sidestep the health issues of bacteria in the bugs requiring special caution....
Last time I was in Mexico you could buy fried grass hoppers to crunch on. I think tourists were the most common customers.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Beef is amazingly good to eat , taste wise....but what about bugs, if shit was very nutritional, does not mean i want to eat it....
ARE YOU ALL MAD?!!! They're talking about replacing meat with bugs!!!! GROSS!!!!
and I did post interesting related technicality
One that hath name thou can not otter