My modest goal these days is to set myself and my descendants up so that none of us ever has to eat bugs. I don't care what it costs. Life isn't worth living if you can't happily chomp a steak, suck down a martini and light a cigarette at the table. It's not to piss people off. It's for enjoyment. Fuck people who can't enjoy life and want to make everything a disgusting misery for other people. If eating cockroaches is what someone believes it takes to save the environment, then let them be a crazy saint. The world will recover after humans wipe ourselves out, if we do, but it's not really worth living if you spend all your time hating yourself for existing and desiring what comes naturally, is it? I'm just dead tired of the neo-religious bullshit around the idea that what I eat or drink is some kind of sin. This is the reason to get rich. Let everyone around scream and faint into their bowl of mealworms. fuck'em all.
Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
91–100 of 495 posts
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t it also the case that a lot of these contaminations in produce (like leafy greens) are caused by animal manure being used to fertilize the produce? Without manure being used the risk is diminished by orders of magnitude.
Only little backyard operations use animal manure. No large food chain will carry greens grown in animal manure.
Maybe so, but how does that explain how E. coli outbreaks on lettuce? From what I understand the waste from animal farms run off into waterways that feed the vegetable farms.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ll pick the salad over the steak any day, though. Above all I’d love to see better technology and attention for food safety, though. It’s stunning to see how many people suffer from food born illness today — something I’d thought was far more under control up until my mid 30s. It’s better under many circumstances and I’m not going to pretend it’s anything like it has been in the past. However, we could do much, muc…
Steak when cooked carries far fewer pathogens than a salad which is not cooked. I do wonder about the comparison between cooked vegetables and cooked meat however.
Steak comes from a sterile place: the inner body of an animal. I don't know of any parasites burrowing their way out of the guts upon temperature changes when cows are killed unlike fish which are loaded with parasites. Thus it's pretty safe to eat steak raw from a pathogen perspective unless handling was botched.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#94I’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…
>my intuition here was way off. I expected insects to pose far fewer risks from parasites to humans. Weird, my intuition was the exact opposite. The thought of eating bugs triggers a disgust reaction, similar to the thought of eating crap. Humans developed those reactions over hundreds of generations for a reason.
A disgust of eating insects is not universal in all cultures.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#95I’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.
Not if you flash deep fry 'em
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eating the bugs never really made sense when they are less efficient and more expensive than plants.
It is my understanding that the reason to eat bugs is the increased protein density. In a vegan diet, getting a sufficient number of calories is quite easy, but getting enough complete protein while not over-filling on calories is tougher.
Soy exists and is a complete protein.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#97I’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…
>my intuition here was way off. I expected insects to pose far fewer risks from parasites to humans. Weird, my intuition was the exact opposite. The thought of eating bugs triggers a disgust reaction, similar to the thought of eating crap. Humans developed those reactions over hundreds of generations for a reason.
My gut reaction to the smell of pork, bacon or any meat derived from pig is disgust.
That doesn't mean this feeling is some kind of natural primal intuition, it just means I didn't grow up eating it.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#98What do the latest studies of farm animals indicate?
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#99They 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.
If by many you mean just locusts. When a bunch of bugs eat all you food and the only thing left to eat is those bugs, then I think locusts being kosher has more to do with survival than actually being kosher.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#100Having eating crickets in Mexico in the past, now I'm concerned.
I’m happy I refused to try when I was there. My SO tried a scorpion though