What's Stopping Us From Eating Insects?

Lasrick writes "Scientific American has a really nice article explaining why insects should be considered a good food source, and how the encroachment of Western attitudes into societies that traditionally eat insects is affecting consumption of this important source of nutrients. Good stuff." Especially when they're so easy to grow.

Comments

and a) mammals aren't poisonous b) cats are useful

[raymorris]

Part of it is in our heads. Also, we eat mammals, not creepy-crawlies, because mammals aren't poisonous. Meat (mammals, birds) is also highly concentrated food.
Insect shells, legs, etc. aren't as good for food, and they are far more likely to be poisonous. Some bugs are poisonous themselves. Others, like flies, hang out in rotting meat which is full of bacteria and toxins. So we evolved to not eat bugs because bugs are likely to make us sick.

Of course, fungus is similar. Mushrooms are an acquired taste, not something that most people enjoy immediately, but with modern practices we can separate the edible fungus from the poisonous. We eat some edible fungus and smoke one of the poisonous ones. :)

Cats and dogs aren't "all in our heads", we have them for a reason, and that reason isn't food. Evolutionarily speaking, it's better to let your cat keep the rats away than to eat the cat. "Don't eat your friends" is a good idea, not just a cultural convention.

Re:Shrimp, Lobsters, and Crabs are Insects

[agapeton]

Arthropod != Insect

Re:Good Question

[Holi]

I dunno, fish is healthy, and most fish we eat is not vegetarian.

Re:Shrimp, Lobsters, and Crabs are Insects

[serviscope_minor]

Shrimp, Lobsters, and Crabs are Insects

No, they're not. Insects and crabs share the same phylum: arthropods.

For reference we're on the phlum chordata. This includes things such as mammals, all fish (bony, otherwise and even jawless), hagfish (weird craniates which aren't really quite vertebrates), lancelets (kind of small brainless proto-proto-proto-fish) and sea squirts which are sessile bag shaped filter feeding blobs.

Now crustacians is still quite broad but doesn't contain insects. It does however contain woodlice and that really, really gross parasite which eats the fishes tounge and then spends the rest of its life acting as the fishes tounge.

*shudder*

Re:Good Question

[cusco]

When the Inca conquered a new people they left the religion and social structure more or less in place, but implemented a few new laws that superseded the existing laws.

1) The Sun is the god of all gods, superior to whatever deities you already have
2) The Inca is the king of all kings, superior to whatever ruler you already have
3) No more sodomy (they wanted to increase population as quickly as possible
4) Stop eating dogs

We have three 'calatos', the Peruvian hairless dog (my wife's family has had one or more of these dogs continuously for at least 40 years). Wonderful animals, clean, loyal, no shedding, no fleas, affectionate, intelligent, pretty much everything you want in a dog. And since there's no hair they're easy to prepare for the oven.

Re:LAND SHRIMP

[bill_mcgonigle]

Insects taste like shrimp, crab, or lobster. It's just the cultural bias that keeps people from eating them.

No, it's mostly economics. I looked into this a few months ago. The best flavor from an insect comes from a an emperor scorpion, which tastes much like shrimp. They take about 18 months to grow to a harvestable size and require about 20 gallons of space to stay healthy. They need lights if kept in captivity and cannot get along in large groups.

From there, the amount of meat per volume goes way down, unless you're eating meal worms and crickets, which can be toasted as snacks or ground up to make various pastes (McBuggets?) but not enjoyed as a piece of meat.

If I were to raise emperor scorpions on my farm, they would cost more than lobster (which may still be viable in some restaurants for an exotic option). In our current scheme all of the time, food, and habitat for the lobsters are 'free' and not included in the cost of the meal.

Carnivore meat is not inherently toxic.

[Valdrax]

Parent may have been clueless to the tongue-in-cheek nature of my post but whoever modded this down was nonetheless a fucking moron; it's well understood that the flesh of nearly-completely-carnivorous creatures (such as felines) is highly toxic and can kill you if you eat it.

Not really. Salmon, tuna, and swordfish are completely carnivorous and are eaten worldwide. Alligators and snakes are eaten in various parts of the US and are carnivorous. Indigenous Arctic peoples ate diets drawn primarily from seals (all carnivorous) and whales (many of which are carnivorous). Squids and octopi are carnivores.

Now, that said, carnivore meat does carry some risks, all in the form of bioaccumulation of toxic materials. (e.g. Mercury and other heavy metals, PCBs, etc.) But "highly toxic" is a bit over-dramatic. You can eat a serving of carnivorous fish once a week and be fine. You can also eat far more than that and survive, but you may run into health risks or, more importantly, pass on unsafe levels that will affect your child's development if you get pregnant. Adults only risk death if those kinds of fish are your primary protein source and/or you get them from an actively polluted area. (See, e.g. Minama disease.)

But the meat *itself* is fine, in absence of human-cause problems.