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

Good Question

[MikeDataLink]

It's all in our heads. We choose to eat some animals (like cows) and not others (like cats) because of cultural reasons. Same with insects.

Re:Good Question

[unique_parrot]

I think eating non-vegitarian animals is not a very clever idea.

Re:Good Question

[TheCarp]

I wouldn't cook any of my cats, but from the descriptions it seems like cat might be ok in a stew or soup. I have seen a few stories of cat consumption which tend to agree with this thought. In fact, most of the wikipedia headings on it seem to indicate stew is a common choice for those who eat cat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat

Overall though, I think this is part of why cats self-domesticated:

1. We don't eat the same things they do... vermin tend to not be worth our time. They are not terribly good meat themselves, and also not really worth our time.
2. They are not tasty nor worth our time in terms of meat:carcass ratio
3. They don't eat the same things we do... they can't taste sugar and their need for lysine makes them obligate carnivores,
4. They eat vermin who do eat the same things we do. Cats don't eat grain, but mice and rats do.
5. They can't harm us beyond a scratch or a bite, which can mean infection and even loss of limb or death, but that isn't really the same issue; a cat in such a fight with a human is most likely going to lose badly and quickly.

Throw in cuddly and warm, and its easy to see why cats and humans made natural, mutually beneficial, community, and why we let them move indoors with us.

LAND SHRIMP

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Yuuuuucckkkkk! Bleah! Ugh!

[silviuc]

No matter how much I'm trying to train my brain it still thinks that insects and their larval forms are absolutely repulsive. You can't defeat that unless you have grown up eating those things and then it's the norm. In a "survival" scenario we might be able to overcome the repulsion as the hunger sensation might override our other instincts. Anyway, I reckon that, for my remaining life span, pigs, cows, chicken, turkeys, rabbits... etc won't go extinct and neither will we suddenly lose the ability to grow them..

Ugh that risotto with grubs did not help either... yuuuuucckkkkk! Bleah! Ugh!

Re: Yuuuuucckkkkk! Bleah! Ugh!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two problems here:

1. Some insects flock to filth. So culturally we consider insects as being unclean (roaches in particular are associated with unhealthy living conditions).

2. No one seems to want to put effort into preparing the insects before they try to get people to eat them. While I like shrimp I would not be interested in popping a living shrimp in my mouth. Similarly I would be much more willing to eat a cockroach if it had been decapitated and cooked first.

Corollary to #2. The less you have to dismember the insect yourself the better. Blue crabs are really popular where I live but something like 1 in 5 people refuse to eat them the "traditional" way where you tear apart the boiled crab yourself, and many more refuse at first and need to be peer pressured into it before they decide they like it. They usually will eat crab cakes or crab soup however.

Re:"Eww it's like a pus explosion in my mouth!"

[GameboyRMH]

Another paraphrased quote:

"When I eat bugs, it always tastes like they get a last bit of revenge on me by taking a dump in my mouth."

Pushing the insect diet much?

[YalithKBK]

This is like, the fourth article in as many months on slashdot about why we should use insects as a food source. Are they pushing this as a new diet fad or something?

Re:I have tried insects before

[Hoi Polloi]

I think you pretty much nailed it here. With bigger animals like cows and even shrimp you can separate the meat from the shell, with insects you can't. Insect exoskeletons also frequently come with spiny legs, thoraxes, etc, not the most pleasant things to have in your mouth or try to swallow.

Supposedly roasting insects and grubs makes the interiors firmer and less gooey. As far as taste goes it is telling that advocates always (for instances) promote chili powder covered or chocolate dipped insects. Even they can't handle eating bugs as they are.

There is also the issue of disease and parasites. I'm not sure you can clean insect bodies off as thoroughly as you could, say, a lobster. With beef you are taking meat that hasn't been exposed to the environment unlike insect bodies. With insects you are also eating the contents of their digestive tracts.

Re:I'm in.

[FatLittleMonkey]

Give me some tasty recipes.

1. Feed insects to chickens.
2. Cook and eat chickens.