They probably contain toxins that can't be cooked away either. Ask yourself why humans refrained from eating them unless near starvation and death for the recorded history of humanity.
Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
41–50 of 495 posts
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the brakes should be slammed until that is answered. Unless we want another pandemic. Given the rate of mutation and transmission in bugs with natural gestation and migration, the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential without a similar dataset in other human food sources.
If you eat any sort of processed agricultural produce (wheat, rice, juice, tomato paste etc), you're already eating lots of bugs that got processed along the way.
I was surprised to learn that it is not primarily raw eggs that make cookie dough potentially dangerous, but the flour. The raw wheat that sits in grain towers, that birds sit on top of and pests snack off of, doesn't go through a lot of processing before getting bagged or so I read.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#43"Parasitic developmental forms were detected in 244 (81.33%) out of 300 (100%) examined insect farms. In 206 (68.67%) of the cases, the identified parasites were pathogenic for insects only; in 106 (35.33%) cases, parasites were potentially parasitic for animals; and in 91 (30.33%) cases, parasites were potentially pathogenic for humans. " Sounds horrific. How does this compare to other food sources?
This makes sense to me. When you actually look at farming practises. Trying to maximise the productive load in a space. As usual perfect breeding ground for anything.
Now, how do natural habitats compare? And in those do these parasites affect the reproductive success?
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#44They probably contain toxins that can't be cooked away either. Ask yourself why humans refrained from eating them unless near starvation and death for the recorded history of humanity.
Could just be because they're hard to catch in bulk compared to other prey
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#45"Parasitic developmental forms were detected in 244 (81.33%) out of 300 (100%) examined insect farms. In 206 (68.67%) of the cases, the identified parasites were pathogenic for insects only; in 106 (35.33%) cases, parasites were potentially parasitic for animals; and in 91 (30.33%) cases, parasites were potentially pathogenic for humans. " Sounds horrific. How does this compare to other food sources?
Other food species, in their wild forms, don't rely quite as hard on a fast generation cycle to solve parasites. If individuals of your species can lay eggs and die before the exponential curve of some infection reaches the steep parts, that's good enough, problem solved. It's the same reason as why short-lived programs require neither free nor GC and why we prefer to not bother with types in one-shot scripts.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Extremely probable as well as extremely dangerous outcome. Analogous to the risk of ruin in finance, not simply an undesirable out probability. Should we not believe the research above to contain 1/3 insects tested carried pathogenic parasites? Does this not strike you as extreme. Potentially an order or orders of magnitude more dangerous?
Eating insects is about as dangerous as it was ten years ago or twenty years ago. If more people are eating insects than before that might increase risks. I don't really have any opinion on this, nor any horse in the race. But, what does any of this have to do with exponentials? > [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...] Exponential in what input variable?
probably they mean
``` probability(catastrophic outcomes) == e ```
/s
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#47I’ve wondered about this for a few years so this is extremely gratifying to read. I’ll have to go in deeper later to really understand the implications of each parasite, but my main takeaway is that my intuition here was way off. I expected insects to pose far fewer risks from parasites to humans. I wouldn’t have taken a chance based on that assumption, and cooking bugs seems like it would eliminate most of these pat…
> both seem to carry plenty of baggage Salads can literally kill you via the listeria they bring.
The majority of foodborne illness and death in the US is due to animal products. [1]
[1]https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution-image.html#f...
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#48Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#49They probably contain toxins that can't be cooked away either. Ask yourself why humans refrained from eating them unless near starvation and death for the recorded history of humanity.
They didn't. Many insects are even literally kosher. It's just that farming them didn't make much sense until recently.
Plants and mushrooms, having far more different biology from us than insects, are probably a worse concern when it comes to toxins that can't be cooked away. And yet humans managed to cultivate food with plenty of those, like cassava.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#50I don’t get why it’s so hard for people to just stop eating animals.
Over the years I've seen several female friends try to stay vegan. One managed a decade before she couldn't put up with the anemia any more. The others quit sooner, because of weight loss, malnutrition, and other issues.
It seems humans were evolved to scavenge animals as well as eating plants. It's not just protein, it's iron and fats, and a few other things.