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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."
Plus we're not a million miles away from being able to culture meat in vats at this point, which need not produce any greenhouse gases at all if set up right. 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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat
Typical human selfishness trying to hog all the life on the planet.
Surely it is more generous to let your protein have a chance at sentience before you eat it - and we must eat it to survive.
I find it very nice that my protein (that I must eat) can walk around, be happy, find it's own food - even reproduce - before it is eaten.
Condemning so much of the protein we consume to a life in a tank could perhaps be the most selfish thing we have deliberately done as a species.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Eating is a selfish act. Pretty much all of life is a selfish competition.
Either get over it, or take your argument to its logical conclusion and stop living.
I hope you were just trolling.
which is totally what she said
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 the short term we also have to factor in the costs of making our fences fucking huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge
which is totally what she said
I absolutely agree.
In fact, the real problem with using insects for protein will be milking the jumpy little buggers. I mean, even if you can get 'em to squat over the bucket, ordinary fingers will just be way too big for those tiny nipples. We'll have to train squads of baby capuchin monkeys, and you know what a short attention span THEY have. In five minutes, their smocks'll be off and they'll be flinging poo and demanding very small bananas.
It'll never work. Madness, I tell you.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
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.
Not if it's cooked *juuuust* right. but 5 seconds on the heat can make the difference between undercooked, just right, and overcooked with kangaroo. Having cooked it quite a few times it's just too damn annoying to bother again.
Exactly right. Kangaroo is very very lean so even a fraction too long on the grill makes it incredibly chewy. It's damn good when it's done right (and healthier than most meats). But getting it right is so hard that it may never be a mass-market commercial meat for that reason alone.
I've cooked kangaroo 3 or 4 times and only once did it come out 'perfectly', IMO. Then again I'm a 28 year old male - my cooking skills are not what you'd call 'good' ;)
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.
Sounds good now, but later we'll rue the day we switched.
There's also the option of vertical farming. Not a good idea though. I'm sure it will all end in tiers.
Back to to the insects. Sky prawns FTW!
the French enjoy snails
The French enjoy garlic butter. They add a token amount of snail to it because just eating lumps of garlic butter would be a bit weird.
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Diet makes a big difference in how meat tastes too. My family hunts and depending on the available food sources in an area the deer will taste different. People who often find deer taste very "gamey" should try changing the area they hunt in, this is often a result of the diet. Taking deer in an area with abundant sources of alfalfa and beech nuts will usually result in very good meat.
Bullcrap. When I use Monster electrical cords on the lights in my henhouse, the eggs have even RICHER yolks than free-range, plus the hen's clucks sound SILKIER.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.