Ways to start eating insects | Hacker News Reader

Ways to start eating insects

smithsonianmag.com

70 pointsd_a_robson121 comments

> what they’re doing is feeding fly larvae on food waste to raise maggots. The maggots are processed into meal, which can be used as a high-protein feed for chickens, fish and pigs. The maggot meal stands to be more sustainable

Now this I find interesting! It would be a much easier sell than humans eating the insects.

I'd like to know more about the sustainability claims though - anyone know anything about this?

This site has some numbers: http://www.kunger.at/161540/1591397/overview/farm-432-insect...

So why should we eat insects? The standard answer is: it is a cheap and sustainable source of protein. But I have yet to see a convincing argument that it is cheaper and more sustainable than soy protein, aka tofu.

I asked myself the same question. Why do we need to replace meat by something? Are vegans really lacking protein? Moreover, even if it's true, if we just take into account an important diminution of the meat consumption, will people lack proteins? I'm assuming we eat more meat than we ever did in our history.

The comment you replied to talked about cheap and sustainable sources of protein. Meat is neither.

Chicken, pork, salmon and tuna are definitely cheap sources of protein (depending on the country, but generally at least one of them is cheap).

That cheapness is mainly due to non-priced-in externalities (greenhouse gas farts! water use!) and poor treatment of animals (not that I'm a PETA member or anything).

EDIT: And as mentioned elsewhere: government subsidies in many countries (and/or import/export controls).

So you agree that there are meats which are cheap sources of protein?

Government subsidies don't actually lower economic prices. They just change who pays. Removing those subsidies would double most meat prices which means there far less 'cheap'.

There is increasing pressure to lower farming subsides in most of the world in part because food costs have already fallen so much. 1935 1/lb chicken $5.07 (inflation adj), 2011 1lb chicken: $1.34 But, also from a wide range of more politically charged issues.

> Government subsidies don't actually lower economic prices. They just change who pays. Removing those subsidies would double most meat prices which means there far less 'cheap'.

Removing those subsidies would not affect only meat.

Citation needed

Chicken and bugs are about equal when it comes to gram vs. gram of protein.

Why isn't meat a sustainable source of protein?

And yes, I'm pretty much aware of current industrial farming processes and what that does to the environment, but maybe you're missing the forest from the trees, as in maybe it's industrial farming that we should get rid of. Plants and animals are basically engines storing and converting the sun's energy into nutrients and natural ecosystems are very much sustainable. Add fossil fuels in the equation, like what the industrial age did and you get the current clusterfuck. Our grandparents seemed to have no problem in raising their own livestock with sustainable practices. Surely we can do better than them, since we live in the information age and all that.

And for people worried about efficiency, cost and over-population, we are wasting about one third of the food we produce right now. And we spend much less of our income and time on acquiring food. There is room for taking a step back in terms of throughput and maybe focus on quality rather than quantity. Which might be a good idea given that even though the calories in our food is at an all times high, for the first time in history we're seeing overweight children suffering from malnutrition.

The real problem I'm having with your argument, as it's what vegans usually say, is that if you want cheap, you can't beat a combination of corn and soy grown through an industrial process, as these are the most efficient farmed plants we have. Whereas many fruits are very inefficient, consume a lot of water and are not sustainable at scale. Just saying, if you want efficiency, start eating corn.

Animals are inefficient and unnecessary in food production. You're pretty much throwing energy out for no benefit.

Animals eat things you won't and turn them into things you will eat.

> Why isn't meat a sustainable source of protein?

In short, it is because an animal will always eat more food to be food, than would be needed to just feed people on plants directly.

> maybe it's industrial farming that we should get rid of

"Free-range" farming practices are even more damaging and unsustainable than confined breeding operations, for the simple reason it takes more land and more resources.

> Plants and animals are basically engines storing and converting the sun's energy into nutrients and natural ecosystems are very much sustainable.

Not quite, plants are the nutrient producers - they synthesize solar energy into every amino acid essential to animals, into phytonutrients, etc. Animals, on the other hand, are nutrient consumers. I.e., animal derived foods are only nutritious because the animals ate plants.

> calories in our food is at an all times high

That's mostly from animal products and refined, packaged foods.

> Whereas many fruits are very inefficient, consume a lot of water and are not sustainable at scale

This is simply conjecture. Are you absolutely sure growing fruit is inefficient compared to modern animal agriculture?

> start eating corn.

Gladly. Starchy vegetables - complex carbohydrates - are the foods our ancestors ate for many years; they are regarded as a diet staple of several ancient societies.

Right, vegans are not protein deficient and many people thrive on high carb diets (see blue zones, adventist health studies, etc.) Unfortunately we've all been bombarded with the protein myth (more protein == healthier) and even the smart people of HN can't seem to question this belief objectively.

And don't forget the cultural indoctrination in the West that meat is manliness. In the northern parts of the hemisphere when Spring rolls around the airwaves are inundated with advertisements for barbecues and beer. Meat from one source or another is the center piece for nearly every meal. And the restaurants, fast or otherwise, are only catering to this obsession with over-indulging in meat.

The only thing that seems to turn people off it are cholesterol and heart surgery.

Don't get me wrong a good steak is fucking delicious. But for me it's like cake. I can't and don't want to have it often. A good burger is good but to borrow a cliché: too much of a good thing...

Can we ever eat insects? Well... can you make it look and taste like a classic cheeseburger? Will I still get my Sunday bacon?

Meat is inherently manly.

Consuming meat at the scale that Americans (for instance) do is not manly, it's extremely irresponsible.

Steak as cake. I like that. I'm genetically susceptible to cholesterol more so than others. I like this way of thinking about it.

Now, I would probably eat steak more often than cake, I don't really eat cake that much.

Probably because it's not a myth that high protein diets are healthful. High protein diets typically result in better maintenance of lean mass (muscle) and better health markers if compared with one that replaces protein with carbs (http://examine.com/faq/how-does-protein-affect-weight-loss/)

Many studies have shown that replacing fat or carbs 1:1 (by calories) with protein leads to better body composition and (sometimes) slight weight reduction. (http://authoritynutrition.com/how-protein-can-help-you-lose-...)

That's not to say that everyone should be eating bodybuilder levels of protein, but the evidence seems to support that focusing on it ahead of fat/carbs is probably a wise move.

Please check the citations carefully.

The very first one I opened said,

> Funding sources: Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, The Beef Board, Kraft Foods, National Science Foundation (PI: Layman). Dr Layman has participated in speaker bureaus for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Dairy Council.

Another reported,

> Supported by a Medical Research grant from Meat and Livestock Australia.

Another said,

> Supported by the Dairy Farmers of Canada, The Dairy Research Institute

I am horrified some authors are brazen enough to report the following, and still be taken seriously,

> AA acts as consultant or member of advisory boards for The Global Dairy Platform, USA; McCain, USA; Pathway Genomics, USA; Dutch Beer Knowledge Institute, Netherlands; McCain, USA; McDonalds, USA.

Or how about,

> DP-J, EW, RDM, RRW, AA, and MW-P have received compensation for speaking/consulting engagements with The Beef Checkoff through the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. DP-J has received compensation for speaking engagements with the National Dairy Council. AA has received speaker's fees and/or research grants form the Danish Meat Council and Arla Foods and Campina. RDM has received speaker's fees from the National Dairy Council.

These disclosures of competing interests do not inspire confidence in the works.

Conflicts of interest are almost always present with something as fiercely debated as nutrition. On the low-protein side, much of the research is performed or reported by biased organizations like Center for Science in the Public Interest. Even if a moral case can be made for not eating animals, it shouldn't be allowed to influence nutritional science.

Attacking conflicts of interest is an easy out (ad hominem); do you have some actual citations refuting the science in some of those references?

Only because no one wants to fund nutrition study, "respectable" organizations only fund studying disease.

I propose the following - nutrition is only perceived to be "fiercely debated" because of research with conflict of interest.

Could you cite any examples of purportedly biased "low-protein" researched funded by that group you've mentioned? I'd like to take a look.

The high-protein diet fads are not new. You can find a lot of information discrediting their authors and methodology. Here is just one example,

> There are two kinds of high-protein diets popular today: Those that limit calorie intake by causing the body to develop a metabolic state known as ketosis; and those that make stringent rules which limit the dieter’s intake of food.

> The “ketogenic diets” cause the body to produce ketones by severe restriction of carbohydrate intake while allowing unlimited fat and protein intake. With insufficient intake of the body’s primary fuel, carbohydrate, the body turns to fats from foods and from body fat for fuel. Byproducts of this metabolism are acidic substances called ketones (acetacetic acid, B-hydroxybuteric acid, and acetone). The metabolic condition is known as ketosis. Ketosis is associated with loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue, and hypotension (lower blood pressure). The result is a decrease in food (calorie) intake. Ketosis is the key to the diet’s success, by allowing the body to starve while reducing the suffering of severe hunger pangs.

> This same condition, ketosis, occurs naturally when people are literally starving to death or seriously ill. During starvation this metabolic state is a kindness of nature allowing the victim to suffer much reduced pains of hunger while dying. During illness the suppression of the appetite frees the person to rest and recuperate, rather then be forced by hunger to gather and prepare food. Because ketogenic diets simulate this metabolic state seen with serious illness, I refer to them as “the make yourself sick diets.” As we will see below, another reason low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets deserve this title is they contain significant amounts of the very foods — the meats — that the American Cancer Society and the Heart Association tell us contribute to our most common causes of death and disability.

https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/health-science/...

Interesting cite, because Dr. McDougall would be a perfect example of someone who lets his dogmatism influence his research. Even from Wikipedia:

"Reviewing McDougall's book, The McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss, nutritionist Frederick J. Stare and epidemiologist Elizabeth Whelan criticized its restrictive regime and "poor advice", concluding that the diet's concepts were "extreme and out of keeping with nutritional reality".

The quotes you referenced were specifically talking about a ketogenic diet; not a high protein one per se. Ketogenic diets typically try to keep protein low-moderate, as protein is anti-ketogenic. Even still, or perhaps as a direct result of the protein, high protein keto diets still fare better: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/87/1/44.abstract

You're sound like a conspiracy theorist.

Attack the data if you have a problem.

Is it really so ridiculous to think for-profit groups care not for interests of my health? The evidence was simply unconvincing to me - mostly cohort and case control studies with small sample sizes, done by researchers I have never heard of (one lead author's credential was a degree in exercise physiology, for example). Compounded by the fact these individuals were paid money to seek out certain results, I simply find the whole of "evidence" to be laughable. If high-protein diets are truly so magical, why is it the World Health Organization recommends just 10% or fewer calories be derived from protein, and the majority from carbohydrates (fruit, vegetables, etc.)? Is there any recognized nutritional authority or respectable medical group which supports these sponsored, high-protein diet findings?

It's still important to get complete protein in your diet (which isn't that hard, and there are some plant sources of complete protein, like quinoa). Not to mention that it appear that high-protein diets (especially from animal sources) lead to a variety of health risks[1].

1: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413114...

You don't need to get a "complete protein" in every meal. If you're eating a varied diet, the "complete protein" requirement is trivially fulfilled.

Vegans may not be deficient but they certainly aren't anywhere close to optimal. That's why very few strength and power athletes are vegans or vegetarians.

People who concern themselves with building lean muscle mass, like me, do not seriously entertain the thought of plant-based diets, let alone high-carb ones. All of the data says otherwise: if you want to build lean muscle, eat quality protein that the human body will use most effectively. That means animals.

If you are a non-athletic, sedentary person then I imagine a vegan diet would work, though I question the use of the word "thrive".

> ll of the data says otherwise: if you want to build lean muscle, eat quality protein that the human body will use most effectively. That means animals.

Which data, exactly? You can get sufficient amount of protein to build muscle on a vegan diet.

Check out Patrik Baboumian. It doesn't appear he has any trouble building muscle on a plant based diet.

It's not just about replacing meat, it's about alternative sources of food.

Imagine mass extinction events, global war disrupting supply chains, space colonies, etc.

These are instances where you would go.. "thank goodness we developed some decent insect food".

Tofu and soy can cause hypothyroidism, no longer recommended to eat more than 100-200g/week source: https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=...

Is there such a demonstrable effect on heavy tofu-eating populations like in Japan ?

The Japanese eat far more seafood than tofu. They consume on average < 9 g of soy protein per day, a tiny amount. By comparison, a single egg has roughly 5 g.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16571087

"Thus, collectively the findings provide little evidence that in euthyroid, iodine-replete individuals, soy foods, or isoflavones adversely affect thyroid function. In contrast, some evidence suggests that soy foods, by inhibiting absorption, may increase the dose of thyroid hormone required by hypothyroid patients. However, hypothyroid adults need not avoid soy foods. In addition, there remains a theoretical concern based on in vitro and animal data that in individuals with compromised thyroid function and/or whose iodine intake is marginal soy foods may increase risk of developing clinical hypothyroidism. Therefore, it is important for soy food consumers to make sure their intake of iodine is adequate."

Some soy is fine, but if we're talking as completely replacing your meat, it could be too much estrogen like compounds. Hence breasts in men and an increased risk of breast cancer in women. I haven't seen enough studies to definitively rule these out.

Besides, variety is always good. It's never wise to put all your eggs in a single basket.

There's just one thing I don't get... Too much carbohydrates are supposed to be bad. Too much soy is supposed to be bad. But the Japanese live the longest, so obviously they can't be that bad. So one of these assumptions must be false:

- Japanese eat a lot of rice and/or soy (or products made from them) - Japanese have different genetics that allows them to avoid the negative effects of carbs/soy.

We could probably throw fish (mercury) in the mix as well.

How much of the japanese diet is actually made up of soy? The numbers I've seen are <5%.

It seems like it'd be much more than the 100-200g/wk that they suggest. In China or Taiwan, every day you could drink a big bowl of soy milk for breakfast, and for lunch/dinner eat some mapo tofu, stir fried bean curd sticks, etc.

I confirm it should be more than that. Miso soup is a daily dish in Japan for about one or 2 meals, and it usually contains 20g of Tofu at least. Then there's soy beans, used in many delicacies, soy sauce used for sushi, a number of dressing using soy as a base...

100-200g/week actually seem a rather low estimate in Japan.

Actually the Japanese and also many Chinese are running into problems with health because of high salt and such. Soy not as much, and I don't really believe the breast cancer stuff or east asian countries would be the no.1 place for those kinds of cancers.

You think it's salt and not increasing obesity rates?

> Too much carbohydrates are supposed to be bad.

Carbohydrates are your body and brain's preferred energy source. What makes you think consuming too many is, "bad"? If derived from whole plant sources, carbs are fantastic and shouldn't be restricted.

by the time it hits the bloodstream the carbs in an apple and those in a bowl of lucky charms are identical. it's all broken down into identical fructose and glucose molecules.

The processes by which the two "hit the bloodstream" are quite different. For example, an apple has fiber and phytonutrients which slow the absorption of glucose. Whole fruits are so unlike processed breakfast cereals, I think it's a stretch to say their metabolization is identical.

yep, but 100i/h for 1h vs 10i/h for 10h is the same amount of energy in the end. I didn't mean to say the metabolization is the same at all, and absolutely fibre makes a huge difference, but that's a different macro nutrient from the sugar (fructose/glucose) content.

> Some soy is fine, but if we're talking as completely replacing your meat, it could be too much estrogen like compounds.

Are you aware there's estrogen found in virtually all animal products, in concentrations and potency many times greater than any phytoestrogens could possibly deliver?

> Hence breasts in men and an increased risk of breast cancer in women.

Your source for this claim? I've only found evidence to the contrary, e.g.,

"Thus, the evidence to date, based largely on case–control studies, suggest that soy food intake in the amount consumed in Asian populations may have protective effects against breast cancer. Overall data based on Asian women, mainly derived from case–control studies, show a dose-dependent, statistically significant association between soy food intake and breast cancer risk reduction. There was an approximately 16% risk reduction per 10 mg of isoflavones intake per day."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18182974

"This nested case-control study found an inverse association between plasma genistein and the risk of breast cancer in Japan."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18316793

"Soy isoflavones consumed at levels comparable to those in Asian populations may reduce the risk of cancer recurrence in women receiving tamoxifen therapy and moreover, appears not to interfere with tamoxifen efficacy."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19221874

"In summary, this follow-up study among a population-based sample of breast cancer patients suggests that there may be a beneficial effect of high intake of flavones and isoflavones on all-cause mortality."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18006917

"Our study is the third epidemiologic study to report no adverse effects of soy foods on breast cancer prognosis."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21357380

Hey, that's great, I hadn't done a deep look for a while. Regardless, my point was more with using it as your only source of protein, which none of these address.

Considering every whole plant food is a complete protein source, a diet consisting of only tofu is impractical and unpalatable, which is why you'll unlikely find such a study.

A small addition to noondip's reply:

"Clinical studies show no effects of soy protein or isoflavones on reproductive hormones in men: results of a meta-analysis." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524224

Also you say that you have not seen enough studies to rule these out; what studies have you seen to make you believe they might be an issue?

Plenty of people don't like tofu - I hate it, personally - yet love meat.

Admitedly, I didn't exactly enjoy the few insects I've tried eating, either.. but what's wrong with having more options for cheap and sustainable protein?

What makes you mention that it's sustainable?

I don't know, just seems to be the general vibe from many of the recent 'eating insects' stories: raising insects is more sustainable than regular meet because it consumes less meat and land, and emits less greenhouse gasses.

Not sure if you could produce enough insects for the whole wide world or even a country. For animal products, its been demonstrated at large scale. For insects, it has never been done so I'd like to see how it scales, and what kind of problems come from scaling up. Until then, it's just a nice fantasy.

Well, ants and termites together are estimated to have about as much biomass as all cattle, sheep, and goats combined... [1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_%28ecology%29#Global_b...

Probably because the main argument behind starting to eat insects is that meat production in the West is unsustainable and devastating ecologically; the main reason we even get to enjoy meat is, from what I've heard, heavy subsidizing of meat production. I've read people saying meat is 10x cheaper than it should be, based just on production costs alone.

This isn't unique to meat and leaving out that information is misleading. Food in the US is heavily subsidized and overseen by the government for obvious reasons. Just like water is too important to leave to the free market, food is heavily regulated to ensure the health of the nation.

The point isn't about subsidies per se, the point is that vegetables are generally sustainable, while meat at this scale and with this demand is not. Subsidies only hide this fact from the consumer.

By that logic the government is hiding the fact that vegetables aren't economically sustainable either. You're just changing your definition of sustainable to fit your argument (from ecologically to economically and then back to ecologically when the economic part was shown to be false). Pick a definition and stick to it.

> Food in the US is heavily subsidized and overseen by the government for obvious reasons

To be fair, you might be fine with some regulations but very little subsidies.

E.g. corn in the US is heavily subsidized, but rarely used for human consumption; or historically, Iceland used to grow their own bananas until 1960 as fruit import was heavily taxed.

Well regulation and subsidizing of agriculture in the United States is a direct reaction to the Great Depression. The country was fine without it for over 100 years. It's there in case shit really hits the fan, not because people can't figure it out on their own most of the time.

> food is heavily regulated to ensure the health of the nation

Oh the irony.

Or just eating less meat and more quality meat from time to time would maybe be less radical than switching completely to insects.

Insects can recycle plant _waste_ into protein. I don't know if that is more effective than using it as compost/fertilizer for soy beans.

Most food is wasted directly at the producer when it does not meet some standard (size, form, flaws, color etc). Also there are many parts of plants that are not used at all (stems, leaves etc). I guess it is also much easier to grow just any plant that the insects eat, compared to something that humans like, especially in areas where industrial farming is not effective.

A Dilbert comic, which I quoted upthread, had the PHB getting Wally and Dilbert to eat bugs as a test of what they're willing to do for his approval. The "insect diet" proposals are the same and that's all they are. The Earth is in crisis; are you willing to eat bugs if that's what it takes to save the environment? No? Then fuck you. Into the chipper-shredder with you, we'll recycle you into protein for starving refugees.

Because animal protein is delicious.

I believe it's actually the fat. That's why lean meat requires larding, in cookbooks.

> But I have yet to see a convincing argument that it is cheaper and more sustainable than soy protein, aka tofu.

This, and I'd like to see a convincing argument that it's actually delicious to eat. Eating is not just about surviving, it should be a pleasure as well, and I think you need to overcome a lot of barriers before you can actually put an insect in your mouth, no matter how "good" it's supposed to be for your health.

All of east asian and indian cuisine would like to have a word.

If you are implying that insects are staple food in asia, that is simply not true.

The parent was taking about how soy products like tofu couldn't be tasty.

In Some regions of Mexico people eat a certain type of grasshoper. No worse than eating shrimp or lobster (which is just a really ugly large insect).

I'd like to taste a convincing argument that tofu is actually delicious to eat.

I'd rather eat fried ants.

Do you know how to perfectly prepare tofu?

I don't know how to perfectly prepare anything. Most foodstuff is still quite enjoyable.

But it's easy to perfectly prepare tofu.

Do you live in a large city? Know a really good Thai or Chinese or Vietnamese restaurant there? Go there. Order a curry with tofu, or kung pao tofu, or lemongrass tofu. If that isn't at least as tasty and satisfying for you as the same dish with chicken or beef, I'll be very surprised. I prefer the tofu version of all of them over the meat option (I am vegetarian, but have not always been so...I remember the taste and texture of the meat options).

It doesn't even have to taste like meat. I just don't like to eat tasteless rubber.

Then the next problem is that I'm poor bastard. I can buy groung pork for 4,50e/kg, or half a chicken for 2,50e/kg. Tofu costs 12e/kg in supermarket, I could eat pretty decent beef for that price. I usually can afford eating in a restaurant maybe once in a month. So if I find good tofu, it's really not going to change my diet.

According to some studies beef/pork/chicken production consumes resources in that order. Also they churn out CO2 and other pollutants in that order. And they cost money in that order. Price is roughly proportionate to enviromental impact. Why is tofu so freaking expencive?

Ah, so you've never had well prepared tofu. That is an entirely understandable situation to be in; I was an adult before I'd eaten good tofu, even growing up in a city that had a reasonably large Asian population. It can be tricky to get it right (when preparing it at home, without a pro gas wok cooker, for most types of fried or sauteed tofu, draining, pressing, and then freezing it provides a nice texture and makes it easier to marinate effectively, as the freezing puts tiny holes in it).

As for price, I don't know. That's not been my experience. In the U.S., even small cities with limited options, it is never much more than $2/pound, which is, I believe, competitive with most meats, though it has been a long time since I've bought meat (I was regularly buying chicken for my dog a few years ago when she had cancer and had a poor appetite, and I seem to recall it was a couple bucks a pound). Asian markets are consistently the cheapest place to buy tofu, and often have fresh, locally made, tofu for good prices. At least that is true for much of the U.S. and Canada. Where do you live? Is there a "little China" or "Chinatown" in your city? That might be a place to go to check out your low priced tofu options.

Other vegan alternatives to meat include seitan (made from wheat gluten and costs about $3/pound to make using expensive organic wheat gluten and organic packaged vegetable broth...I've made it much cheaper than that) tempeh (expensive when packaged but can be made at home with all sorts of beans, including soy), and, of course just eating nuts, beans, lentils, etc. There doesn't have to be a slab of "meat" on the plate for a meal to be satisfying and delicious. I've gone years without buying tofu (only eating it when eating out, since it took me a while to figure out how to make it well), or eating any of the faux meats. There are plenty of vegans and vegetarians that don't eat tofu. I happen to really like it, especially now that I've learned a few ways to prepare it that are really tasty.

I live in Helsinki, Finland.

There is kind of China Town in my city. The local technology university has somewhat high Chinese population. I lived at the uni campus and there was this incident about shady van going around and distributing weird packages to Chinese in exchange of money. Someone called cops because "maybe there is drugs!". It turned out they had organized tofu van, because they could not find cheap good tofu anyway else.

I love the idea of a tofu van! We have many, many, food trucks in Austin, but they're for prepared foods. If I could get fresh tofu delivered at a reasonable cost I would be very happy.

Home production of tofu is possible, just not at all simple. It's very time-consuming, and getting the equipment and consumables to make it well would add up to a not inconsequential sum. I plan to try it someday, but not while I'm living in a travel trailer (very small kitchen, very little spare storage for supplies).

Seitan is definitely the easier of the meat substitutes to make at home; only takes an hour and a half, only 20 minutes of which is prep time, the rest is simmering, boiling, steaming, or baking. I just made a seitan roast, with stuffing and mushroom gravy, for Thanksgiving. I posted the recipe because a friend asked me to: http://foodcite.org/recipe/seitan-roast-a-vegan-turkey-alter...

I've also used the Post Punk Kitchen seitan recipe: http://www.theppk.com/2009/11/homemade-seitan/ (I recommended reducing the soy sauce dramatically, as it's just way too salty, when following the recipe exactly; also I use about half the recommended amount of boiling broth for twice the amount of seitan. It's just hard to use up that much broth before it goes bad in the fridge. I usually make gravy and maybe seitan and dumplings with the remaining broth.)

I still haven't figured out how to make Chinese style seitan, which is also really good and tends to have a very soft texture, while still being properly cooked (my seitan gets chewy, kinda roast beef-like or like a chicken breast, by the time it is finished cooking, no matter whether I'm boiling, steaming, or baking it). But, you can often buy it cheaply in dry chunks at Asian markets. Canned wheat gluten is also a common thing, and not very expensive.

Ant larvae, grasshoppers and crickets are surprisingly delicious when prepared well. Larvae are kind of a cross between barley and caviar, while grasshoppers fried with chiles have a deep unami flavor to them. The trick, I think, is finding a region (such as southwestern Mexico) where they have a culinary culture that privileges such dishes.

When's the last time you took a bite right out of a cow? You usually process it first.

In fact, cockroaches are even cheaper! See, the way to do it is to feed cockroaches, and only cockroaches to chicken. Then, when the chicken gets really fat (full of cockroaches protein!), you kill the chicken, give the food to human to eat. All those juice from the cockroaches.

OK. I just threw up.

I somehow don't think this is what they mean with "eating insects is the future" with the $700 worm hive and $300 ant booze.

For that price, I'd want my $300 ant booze delivered via ants. Watching the bottle seemingly scoot itself across the bar counter would probably be far more satisfying than actually drinking the stuff.

Well there isn't much industrialization on this front so of course these things are a luxury, and cost as such.

Before pineapples were able to be cheaply grown and imported so the masses could afford them, they were revered as a treat only reserved for the upper echelon of society. Now, they're just another cheap fruit in the supermarket.

Side note: sometimes they weren't even a treat for the elite, they were rented to display in parties, and then returned.

Except in the case of pineapples, it's not because of industrialisation, but because of almost slave-labour and smart tax evasions. http://www.bananalink.org.uk/pineapples-true-price-luxury-fr...

In terms of sustainability, I agree with Rob Rhinehart [1] that single-cell protein (e.g. from algae) is the best path forward. It doesn't have the gross factor that insects have, and once the process is perfected, it should be one of the most efficient ways to produce protein.

https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/comments/3afdfp/i_am_rob_am...

I'd rather we keep working on synthetically grown meat tissues. If we can grow the equivalent of a flank steak without needing to kill an animal to get it, eating meat becomes no more of an ethical problem than eating plants.

6) Cycle with your mouth open

We eat birds and animals because they have high efficiency skeletons and circulation systems so they grow to large sizes and so their muscles become larger. Insects have exoskeletons and the spiracle based (air pipes throughout their flesh) respiratory system places limits on their sizes. If grasshoppers grew to be as big as cows, I am sure they would provide harvestable muscle masses to eat. As it is, the work of harvesting 10,000 grashopper legs and extractin their muscles, just ruins the economics of it.

Same with grubs, although the Australian witchetty grub. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchetty_grub https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNsCpRZXq68

is comparable to small shrimps as a edible lump. I am not sure if they need deveining, like shrimps where the lower intestine is removed from the tail to leave the entire peeled tail as high quality fat and protein. A 200 pound witchetty grub might offer witchetty steaks etc. If we selectively bred insects in high oxygen environment to grow them to large sizes, we might change the ease of harvesting grasshopper steaks etc - but that is for ~~100 years in the future

You don't need to individually butcher insects. You can just dump a whole load of crickets into a deep fryer and eat them like potato chips.

That's not a meal, though. It's a somewhat unhealthy snack, comparable to pork rinds, perhaps (more protein and less fat, perhaps, but still unhealthy). A vision of a future that has humans consuming insects on a large scale needs to involve meals made of insects, not snack foods that are much more expensive and only moderately more nutritive than their plant or animal based alternatives.

The environmental and economic cost has to be lower than the current alternatives (if not now, during the infancy of the market, then eventually, once mass production has been figured out), or it doesn't make sense to pursue it. It's already an uphill battle to convince people that bugs are food.

"Your carbon footprint rating for this year is 'fair', but I'll raise your assessment to 'excellent' if you eat a bug."

I've eaten chapulines (grasshoppers). Their taste reminded me of what I think slightly toasted grass might taste like. I didn't care for them, but would try them again if someone who liked them recommended a different preparation and I wouldn't hesitate to eat them if I needed protein.

They're pretty good with any kind of BBQ sauce (if you like a crunchy snack).

I find it weird that people do that with language. Did you also drink agua, breathe aire, walk on calles, or sleep on camas?

Why is it we only do this for some things but not others?

Nothing wrong with that. Is rare enough that I think the name chapulin is OK. It says a lot. It means he is probably talking about a region of Mexico and that he is maybe from Mexico. It is an actual thing in Mexico to eat a certain type of grasshoper. There is another type of insect called a xumile that is eaten. No idea how you would call that in English. I'm not even sure if I havr the spelling right in Spanish.

And we say viva Las Vegas instead to 'cheer the river banks', also.

Is because there is not an exact equivalent to the name 'chapulin' in english, and is a distinctive name, so is useful to keep the word.

But chapulín means exactly the same thing as grasshopper. Anything that an English speaker would call grasshopper a Mexican would call a chapulín.

I guess I understand why people do this. It's obviously not wrong, because nobody can speak incorrectly. It just strikes me as a bit of a cultural misunderstanding, but that's how things are.

The spanish common word for the animal is 'saltamontes', that could be translated as 'mounts-jumper'. Samely as 'grasshopper' this word (used mainly for short-horned grasshoppers) do not have any edible or culinary connotations. Is just an animal (and sometimes 'a disciple').

Chapulín have a richer meaning, can be used to name a dish, a type of insect (including some crickets), can be easily interchanged as toddler, or as 'a dishonest politic' (that jumps to another party), and is also a beloved super-antihero of a popular series for children in the mexican tv that was later photocop... parodied again in the simpsons to make fun of latino spanish speakers (bumblebee man).

I guess you believe that piscina and alberca have different meanings too...

There is a train of thought in linguistics that there is no such thing as an exact synonym.

http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/2062/do-absol...

Of course, the main purpose of an alberca is not to swimming. A piscina is a swimming pool.

Not in Mexico. They're used as exact synonyms as far as I can tell. But you seem convinced that absolute synonyms don't exist. As a corollary to this, exact synonyms between languages don't exist either, so exact translation is impossible. I'll agree that exact translation is impossible, but I think a good translator's job is to convey the closest possible linguistic experience possible. In this case, a chapulín is the closest Mexican equivalent to saltamontes or grasshopper. Although Mexicans will understand the word "saltamontes", it sounds a bit foreign and will resort to chapulín instead.

The Carmine [1] — a red dye most often made from boiled and dried Cochineals [2] — is frequently used in a lot of food products like ice-cream, candy, yogurt, juices, cake, sausage, etc.

So most of us probably unknowingly started to swallow insects laced food since long ago.

Only became aware of it because one of my ex-colleague has severe allergic reactions to it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal

For that matter, there are USDA allowable limits for "insect parts" in most food.

Why bother raising maggots on food waste and then feed them to pigs? Wouldn't it be easier to just give the food waste directly to the pigs? That's what my uncle always did. The pigs didn't seem to mind.

Depends on the kind of food waste. Last thing you want to do is create Pig BSE.

And here you see why modern media is referring to computer issues as glitches instead of bugs: bugs are food!

Mechanisms for sustainability and productivity - the Haber-Bosch process, genetic engineering, the "green revolution", etc. - are a bit of a two-edge sword in that they have allowed for massive population growth. New highways ultimately increase traffic through induced demand. Is not a similar effect at play with these technologies?

I don't want to have to start eating bugs just to make room for a few billion more fellow bug-eaters.

What a cynical, inhuman, and shortsighted comment.

The right way to stop population growth is not to starve poor countries to death, but to bring them to a higher level of wealth, education, and stability. Do this, and overpopulation (and a bunch of other problems) will solve itself.

How have you relegated anyone who doesn't believe that supporting indiscriminate population growth with tech is always a good thing as 'cynical, inhuman and shortsighted'?

Parent noted that these technologies are a double edged sword, i.e., having strengths and weaknesses. Nobody is asking that we starve poor countries. Population regulation through resource scarcity is a natural phenomenon and should be allowed to happen. I'm not sure what's inhuman about this? Are we expected to treat people who don't yet exist in a humane way?

The fact of the matter is that the Earth is a finite place and resources are limited. Maybe there will come a time when we're space faring that it won't matter, but we seem a little far away from that goal.

I think you've wildly misinterpreted my point. Perhaps it's my fault for how I phrased things. I think these technologies, while undoubtably beneficial, have for many decades only pushed back the Malthusian limits imposed by nature which allowed exponential population growth while just as many people remained hungry and destitute.

We're finally turning the corner where the population growth rate has slowed somewhat (recent UN population projections where increased significantly; e.g. Sub-Saharan Africa alone is projected to have a population of 4.5 billion(!) by 2100) allowing people to get ahead of the rate of increased food production. But we're still basically just using up most of the increased production.

Vaclav Smil has pointed out that population growth has been directly corollated to the amount of artificial fertilizers. He points out that even if every bit of arable land was used to its maximum extent, only 3 billion people could be supported. So just think, by 2100 when the UN projects a population of 11 billion, 8 billion of those people will only be alive because the proteins in their bodies use nitrogen from factories producing artificial fertilizers.

If those limits can be pushed back, then nature isn't actually imposing them on us.

What kind of world would it be if the Green revolution had never happened? What if Norman Borlaug hadn't increased yields?

The average number of children per women worldwide is only 2.40, which is not that much above replacement and has been falling for decades. Primarily because the child mortality rate has fallen (drastically so) along with the number of very poor people. Richer people can expect to see all their children reach adulthood, and so they want to have a lot less.

http://kff.org/global-indicator/total-fertility-rate/

I figure we're all going to be eating mealworms in 50 years or many of us are going to be eating at all.

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