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UN Says: Why Not Eat More Insects?
PolygamousRanchKid writes in with news about a U.N. plan to get more bugs in your belly. "The U.N. has new weapons to fight hunger, boost nutrition and reduce pollution, and they might be crawling or flying near you right now: edible insects. The Food and Agriculture Organization on Monday hailed the likes of grasshoppers, ants and other members of the insect world as an underutilized food for people, livestock and pets. Insects are 'extremely efficient' in converting feed into edible meat, the agency said. Most insects are likely to produce fewer environmentally harmful greenhouse gases, and also feed on human and food waste, compost and animal slurry, with the products being used for agricultural feed, the agency said. 'Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly,' the agency said, adding they leave a 'low environmental footprint.' The agency noted that its Edible Insect Program is also examining the potential of arachnids, such as spiders and scorpions."
I see your point, but as someone that travels a lot to 3rd world conditions to help the poor (Kenya tomorrow), I can tell you that the UN often doesn't think things through well. The problem with this is two-fold: 1) Insects can digest and carry more disease than plants. The fact that insects are animal and not plant allows them to be carriers...like Malaria for mosquitos. 2) The insects are actually crawling around in the crap. Plants aren't. Food needs to be prepared carefully. This care of washing and cooking to the right temperature and separating raw meat cutting surface from cooked meat surface is not well practiced around the world.
While there may be same "value" in this food, I would easily imagine more people getting sick from trying to eat the insects and digesting the bad stuff inside and outside them.
Want to see other bad ideas from the UN, look up their Perma-Culture. While the concept is proven and helpful, try to going to poor people barely growing enough food and convince them to go 4 year with below normal crops in hopes that 7 years from now you will have a bumper crop...oh, yeh, then through in a drought every 7 years and see how much this idea helps.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
Unless you're going to covertly introduce ground insects to food, people will know. And if they know, they'll be grossed out.
Red food dye. Cochineal. Made from ground up cochineals. Insects. Plenty know, plenty don't know. Pretty much nobody cares, because they were brought up with it.
Same goes for black pudding, tripe and haggis. People that were brought up on it don't care. So the trick is to get people when they are young.
It's in your head.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to step up to the plate and show you how it's done, but it's in your head. A staunch vegetarian is probably as repulsed at the thought of eating a medium rare steak as you are that handful of aphids.