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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)

#161

Post by eru »

shaburn wrote: post #153
eru wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probability is bound to be between 0 and 1. It's a bit hard to fit an exponential in there.

Still a period in which the increase in probability function could exhibit an exponential rate of growth though right? At 1 we are all dead as well right?

In principle, yes.

In practice: in order for exponential growth (or any growth) to happen, things must have been smaller in the past.

Do you want to argue that the risks were so much in the past?

Eating insects is probably about as dangerous as it was ten years ago or twenty years ago. Not all that much has changed, or has it?

If more people are eating insects than before that might increase risks. Are you suggesting that the growth in number of people who are eating insects has been or will be exponential?

Or are you suggesting that risks are growing (exponentially!) from other factors?

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

#162

Post by TuringTest »

verisimi wrote: post #127
kentrado wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anything to do with eating any meat can be dangerous. We don't know why religions banned certain meat. Anthropologists etc give us post facto rationalisations, and, to my mind, even the holy books might be retrospective excuses.

There are two main reasons why religious books of law ban certain behaviors:

- to encode social and higienic rules as understood at the time

- to signal heressy, prohibiting a common practice carried out by heretics (double points if it is a practice central to those heretical beliefs).

For religions originating in the desert where meat spoils quickly, it makes sense to ban those kinds of meat more prone to transmiting deseases if mishandled.

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

#163

Post by kentrado »

verisimi wrote: post #127
kentrado wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anything to do with eating any meat can be dangerous. We don't know why religions banned certain meat. Anthropologists etc give us post facto rationalisations, and, to my mind, even the holy books might be retrospective excuses.

Chicken is less dangerous than pork.

I am not going to get involved in a religious argument, but I didn't mention it was the only reason, I said it was one of the reasons.

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

#164

Post by mrpopo »

JoachimS wrote: post #151
smcl wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get parasites from eating meat too, you know

Calling people idiots (as OP did) is unnecessary, but do we really need whataboutism? The point here is that insects are proposed as a new, high volume source of proteins, as a way to reduce meat consumption. Humans have fairly good understanding of parastites, bacteria etc related to meat. And have established routines for raising animals and preparing meat to minimize the problems. As far as I know, humans have not…

> seems NOT to be effective against parasites in insects.

I don't see this in the article. They explain in a paragraph that cooking and/or freezing are effective, and that simple drying was "considered promising". With a little drop of caution.

> However, there is a need of thorough evaluation of insect processing methods, including temperatures and time of cooking / freezing to prevent possible parasitic infections

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

#166

Post by automatic6131 »

baxtr wrote: post #107
h0l0cube wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Quoted post unavailable.

Any ideas about how to achieve that? An n-child policy? Forced sterilization? Property size limits? Maybe you'll just be kind and suggest punitive taxes.

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

#167

Post by smcl »

JoachimS wrote: post #151
smcl wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get parasites from eating meat too, you know

Calling people idiots (as OP did) is unnecessary, but do we really need whataboutism? The point here is that insects are proposed as a new, high volume source of proteins, as a way to reduce meat consumption. Humans have fairly good understanding of parastites, bacteria etc related to meat. And have established routines for raising animals and preparing meat to minimize the problems. As far as I know, humans have not…

This isn't whataboutism at all. The topic at hand is parasitic diseases coming from eating insects. Someone is saying this is a reason not to eat any insects and to stick to meat. Hence my comment about meat, in fact it is not only relevant but is one of the reasons two of the major religions to shun certain types of meat.

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

#168

Post by nivertech »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #129
nivertech wrote: post #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 an…

It's still not economical to test e.g. every single pig for roundworms, especially since they do not create clinical symptoms in these hosts and a direct test is rather expensive. But they can pose a significant risk to humans who eat undercooked pork and in the past about 5 percent of Americans were estimated to be infected at any given time. This has only gone down thanks to modern production standards that elimina…

I've read a medical research paper about the resurgence of some nasty parasitic disease in Israel with the breakdown by religious community[1]. Turns what? The stricter the dietary laws for the community were - the less infections occurred.

And we're talking about sheep here, which is similar in size to pig. There are might be a confounding variables here though, i.e. some communities are mostly urban, others are more rural ones. Or maybe sheep meat is less popular among less infected. Or maybe the animals were smuggled from the "West Bank" which is endemic, and veterinary control services are not strict there if existing at all.

--

[1] they used 4 different religions there, but I won't name them in order to not offend anyone.

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

#169

Post by HighlandSpring »

bloak wrote: post #138
justthinkhn wrote: post #119

Don’t eat the bugs. You have an innate disgust reaction to bugs and to the idea of eating them. It evolved over millions of years. Heed nature’s warning. They only eat bugs in places where it was historically necessary due to extreme famine. These activists trying to get you to eat bugs don’t have your best interests at heart. Eat meat. It is one of the great liberties man enjoys.

I don't think disgust is "innate". A typical English person finds squid disgusting, but is happy to eat various kinds of cheese, including ones like Stilton with mould on them. Someone in Japan, on the other hand ... Also, everyone has heard at least one story of a young child eating an earthworm they found in the garden. It seems to be only after seeing the reaction of older children and adults that they learn to fi…

> I don't think disgust is "innate".

Oh it is and what til you hear about couple more fears we didn't have to learn through experience:

> Examples of innate fear include fears that are triggered by predators, pain, heights, rapidly approaching objects, and ancestral threats such as snakes and spiders. Animals and humans detect and respond more rapidly to threatening stimuli than to nonthreatening stimuli in the natural world.

Some adaptations are so worthwhile they get wired into our biology!

- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32852735

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

#170

Post by cassepipe »

kentrado wrote: post #104
jmprspret wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except that might not be the reason why it's forbidden : https://youtu.be/pI0ZUhBvIx4
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