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Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

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Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#101
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I would pick pork ribs over those two any day. Cooking has been our food safety technology for millennia. Even for milk, pasteurization is a way of cooking it.

I often wonder if our lack of exposure to pathogens and parasites have anything to do with the extreme rise of auto immune diseases.

It's one theory among many. The flip side is that autoimmune diseases are often triggered by pathogens (MS from EBV, diabetes from HEV, and more). Air travel and urbanization help pathogens spread. My understanding is that it's not yet clear which are beneficial and which are harmful, but there's ongoing research.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#102
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I’ll pick the salad over the steak any day, though." In terms of food safety and risk of pathogens, salad is far, far more dangerous than steak.

I mean it's raw but still in a steak you probably have way more substances and end of foodchain accumulations.

Oooo SUBSTANCES. THERE MIGHT BE SUBSTANCESSSSSSS....

please stop with the weasel scare words.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#104
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Actually, pork meat can be really dangerous!! That's also another reason why some religions ban it's consumption.

Nowadays, we learned enough to overcome the dangers of pork but that's a result of modern society.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#105
post #87

I’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.

We have a somewhat similar reaction to eating brains for instance, yet that’s probably one of the safer part or the animals we eat.

I think a lot of the reactions we built over hundreds of generations need to be revised in the world we are in today, and in light of what we know now. One of the interesting one is our reaction to body sizes, and how we still have an instinctive reaction to tall people, when it makes no sense in most of the societies we live in.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#106
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often wonder if our lack of exposure to pathogens and parasites have anything to do with the extreme rise of auto immune diseases.

It's one theory among many. The flip side is that autoimmune diseases are often triggered by pathogens (MS from EBV, diabetes from HEV, and more). Air travel and urbanization help pathogens spread. My understanding is that it's not yet clear which are beneficial and which are harmful, but there's ongoing research.

Maybe both are true, they might be triggered because of lack of exposure over a lifetime and then sudden exposure gets an uncontrolled response. But yeah, I have no idea. The parasite therapy for crohns is interesting.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#107

Big fan of Black Soldier Fly farming and there are efforts with grasshoppers. Not sure the featured article (TFA) issue extends beyond the few people working in production (increasingly automated [1]) because the output is a dry meal flour. This, Seaweeds, and directed precise fermentation are a big part of the 10B+ people solution. [1] https://www.rebelnews.com/worlds_largest_cricket_farm_finish...

> a big part of the 10B+ people solution A better solution is not to have the problem in the first place

No post body was provided.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#108
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

We have a somewhat similar reaction to eating brains for instance, yet that’s probably one of the safer part or the animals we eat. I think a lot of the reactions we built over hundreds of generations need to be revised in the world we are in today, and in light of what we know now. One of the interesting one is our reaction to body sizes, and how we still have an instinctive reaction to tall people, when it makes no…

Prion transmitted diseases similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease seem to be not that rare in nature. You need to cook the brains extremely well and long to be on the safe side.

Thankfully BSE (Mad Cow Disease) was not as transmissible as feared.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#109
Larger animals can be inspected individually to find pathogens or diseases.

Insects are so small that it's practically impossible to inspect each individual organism. You can do sampling of the batch, but the odds of missing bad ones are still high.

Same with the fruits and vegetables, some are easy to inspect, others are almost impossible, or impossible to clean. There are kosher (insect-free) versions of lettuce and some berries which are much more expensive than non-kosher ones.

Lastly, disgust is a part of the human immune system. Religious dietary laws and cultural taboos are probably partly developed from disgust, and partly from trial-and-error.

Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)

#110
post #94
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Its instinctual, not cultural. I'm going to guess you're referring to hunter-gatherer societies that frequently have to overcome famine and eat bugs out of desperation.
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