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The Lepsis Is a Terrarium For Growing Edible Insects At Home

An anonymous reader writes "A recent UN report suggested that people should be eating more insects, because they're much less harmful to the environment that traditional meat. In response, designer Mansour Ourasanah has created the Lepsis, a small insect breeder that could be used to grow and harvest grasshoppers in urban homes."

19 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Eating bugs is gross! by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now excuse me while I rip apart this lobster!

    --
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  2. Re:I'm sorry, but... by lxs · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wouldn't mind, but if I get to raise them myself I couldn't bear to eat them. Look at those cute little mandibles. Look at them!

  3. why not garden and have chickens instead? by SpaceManFlip · · Score: 3, Interesting
    many people have lawns. Lawns are mowed to look nice. Nice looking lawns are not useful for food production. Kill the grass and plant the whole yard with food for your family, and then maybe they won't have to eat bugs.

    also if you have a yard, you could parcel off a small bit of it for a chicken coop for not too much money and grow your own eggs / chickens

    I think I'll probably try things like that before I raise insects for food.

    1. Re:why not garden and have chickens instead? by niado · · Score: 3, Insightful

      many people have lawns. Lawns are mowed to look nice. Nice looking lawns are not useful for food production. Kill the grass and plant the whole yard with food for your family, and then maybe they won't have to eat bugs.

      also if you have a yard, you could parcel off a small bit of it for a chicken coop for not too much money and grow your own eggs / chickens

      In most municipalities, you can't really raise chickens. E.g where I live chickens cannot be kept within ~100 feet of a dwelling structure.

      Gardening is usually doable though! Unless you are under a super obnoxious HOA, you can usually get away with a food-garden.

    2. Re:why not garden and have chickens instead? by operagost · · Score: 2

      So you're telling me that you only eat nice critters?

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  4. this is a ridiculous recommendation by nimbius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    and because 'eat some bugs' gets clicks, slashdot cant stop peddling it.

    full disclosure: im vegetarian

    most bugs dont contain anything more than protein and a bit of fat, and the ones that do are hands-down unapproachable by a consumer whos traditionally a meat and potatoes person.
    http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectnutrition.html
    if you want some calcium, it would mean getting used to this guy in your mouth:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belostomatidae

    Its absurd, but hey so is the chicken nugget/finger/ring and its violent extrusion the KFC "double down."
    Are we seriously so opposed to broccoli and other vegetables much loathed as children that we're going to eat bugs instead? we already have alternatives to meat that are cheaper, more nutritious, and widely available. The issue at hand is that we put meat in absolutely everything whether it needs it or not. Speaking for the midwest, even salads have cold-cuts liberally interspersed between the nutritionally devoid iceburg lettuce trucked in from new mexico and california. "lets eat bugs" is not a solution to the "meat is expensive" issue because it ignores the underlying problems of factory farming, monocultural foods, and a population of nutritionally ignorant and chronically obese adults and children. until we solve that shitstorm then no matter what we select as our meat methodone its just going to go down the same route.

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    1. Re:this is a ridiculous recommendation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't think you have a clue how bugs will be consumed if/when they are. The won't be raised on small farms and sold/eaten whole. They'll be produced in huge industrial plants where the process can be mostly automated. They'll then be processed and ground up in to a paste and sold as a protein product to be made in to other food. Gross? Yeah, but that's pretty much how the meat packing industry works now anyway. Meat is often an industrial processed product, thus the "pink goo".

      The only thing that separates a beef burger and a bug burger is the source of the ground-up protein.

    2. Re:this is a ridiculous recommendation by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      I thought the whole point of the bugs was a bit of protein and animal fat. isn't that the point of steak? just make it taste good and look like a burger. it's not like broccoli would fill that role ever... maybe if you genetically engineer the broccoli to consist of animal proteins and fat.

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    3. Re:this is a ridiculous recommendation by kraut · · Score: 2

      That's an easy process.

      1. Buy a pig
      2. Feed it broccoli (& other stuff)
      3. Slaughter pig
      4. Salt & cure bacon.

      --
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  5. Re:Shell fish might be better by WillAdams · · Score: 2

    Why indoors? Why not commoditize it and automate it as a part of one's home?

    Imagine a replacement window, which is an aquarium, which plus into one's electric and has a small computer to monitor food levels &c., as well as a wireless connection to one's broadband to report on conditions inside the tank.

    One pays to have the window installed, plus a monthly fee to have the aquarium serviced and topped off from the outside through a locked access panel (there's a second set of locks on the inside panel, one for the home-owner, one for the company to lock the homeowner out for non-payment).

    Best of all, one could arrange to have a lobster or larger shellfish dropped into the tank if one has company visiting.

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  6. terrorarium by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

    The Lepsis Is a Terrarium For Growing Edible Insects At Home

    No. No no no. I assure you. It isn't.

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  7. Re:I'm sorry, but... by mspohr · · Score: 2

    I have started to think about the "yuck" factor also in regard to all animals. When you look at how cows, pigs, chickens, etc. are raised, fed and "processed" by food factories... and look at the blood and gore and what goes into what you end up eating... it's pretty disgusting.
    I've mostly become a vegan (with some fish).
    Also, animal fat (even from organic, free range, etc. animals) is just really bad for you... heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer, etc.

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  8. Re:I'm sorry, but... by slim · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A proper meat eater isn't put off by blood and gore.

    I've eaten pig in the farmhouse next to which it was raised, and let me tell you, we enjoyed it all the more for knowing exactly where it had come from.

    Yes, it's cultural and conditioned, and if we'd been brought up eating insects we might find the idea of grasshopper mouth-watering. However, most of us were not.

  9. Re:I'm sorry, but... by KGIII · · Score: 3, Informative

    I am something of a "character" I guess. I'll eat anything on the menu. During AIT we also ate insects. I mention that because I want to tell you that I have eaten insects and, frankly, they're not that good. The only "good" one I have found was the chocolate covered ant, because I couldn't taste the ant.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  10. Re:I'm sorry, but... by camperdave · · Score: 2

    I've mostly become a vegan (with some fish).

    Me too!... apart from hamburger, pork, chicken, steak, bacon, eggs, veal, etc. (It counts as vegan if the animals you eat are herbivores, right?)

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  11. Re:I'm sorry, but... by SnarfQuest · · Score: 2, Insightful

    First, you'll hear reports about people who can't bear to eat their precious grasshoppers, so they have been returning them to the wild.
    Then, you'll hear about the swarms of locusts devastating the countryside.

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  12. Blatant misinformation by moerre · · Score: 2

    The OPPOSITE is true: Vegetarians have to look out to get all nutrients. (Disclaimer: I'm talking about real meat. I won't even touch the TOPIC of what's sold as "meat" in US supermarkets, even less that stuff itself) Google "vitamins meat vs vegetables", don't take my word for it. Also, common sense.

  13. Re:I'm sorry, but... by losfromla · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Also, animal fat (even from organic, free range, etc. animals) is just really bad for you... heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer, etc.

    Wrong bucko! Wheat is the killer causing those diseases, that and the low fat diet that has plagued this country since the USDA started telling us how to eat (lot of whole grains). Grains are sugars, that's why kids like bread. That way of eating profits agro-chemical companies to the detriment of our health and that of the environment.

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  14. Re:I'm sorry, but... by Medievalist · · Score: 2

    Well, fresh raw tiger swallowtail butterflies taste sort of like watermelon (take the legs and wings off first) and live wood grubs are slightly sweet and actually kind of delicious (ground grubs, though, are gritty and taste muddy) but ants taste of formic acid, and they latch on to your tongue-bumps with their mandibles if you eat them live, so you end up scraping ant-heads off your tongue with your teeth.

    I hear big spiders are tasty, but haven't tried any.