Ways to start eating insects

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.

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.