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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)

#201

Post by BiteCode_dev »

shaburn wrote: post #8
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans have been eating insects for a long time. In south africa they eat ants, china they eat scorpio, thailand they eat crickets... The ants and the scorpio are quite tasty IMO. On the other hand, I know of places where their casual vegetables are dangerous because their hold traces of animals feces with pathogens but you couldn't tell when buying them. And finally, I remember eating the best eggs ever from my moth…

These are trivial quantities that are unreasonable to reference.

Trivial quantities at the scale of the global population today, not at the scale of local indigenous people for millenia.

If we want to know if insect consumption can be adopted, just looking at industrialized insect farms production given to city folks is going to give us a partial understanding of what's possible.

We need to know things like:

- are those parasites massively more presents in farms than in nature (it's the case for fishes) ?

- what's the probability of the parasites to infects the average consummer ? (We eat parasites all the time)

- if this probaility is high, can a population adapt over time so that this probability goes down ?

Etc

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

#202

Post by nivertech »

ls-lah_33 wrote: post #188
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…

Can't cooking solve this problem? Rare meat is problematic for this reason. Also my understanding is that some traditions in Judaism and Islam even for allow insect consumption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy_in_humans#Rejectio...

Yes, there are 4 types of locust that are edible according to Kashrut, but my understanding that it's mostly for the environmental reasons - because migrating locusts causing so much damage to agriculture - the Rabbis permitted to eat them (similarly as some vegans are saying that oysters can be eaten since they're sustainable and clean the oceans).

Lately I heard another explanation by Prof. Yigal Bin-Nun[1], that when so called "Judaism" became an organized religion it simply assimilated the previously existing dietary norms and taboos. And the pork wasn't eaten in the entire area even before the first mention of the Israelites. The exception being the Philistines who brought a European pig and wild boar to Canaan. Recently there was a DNA research paper which confirmed that the wild boars in Israel are of European origins, not local ones.

So according to this theory it might be that locusts "whitelisted" by "Judaism" when the Himyarite kingdom was converted, probably because locusts were already consumed before the conversion. Of course it's only my speculation.

The more traditional theory on Kashrut origins:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4493194

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4493915

EDIT: yet another theory is that pork was prohibited b/c swine shares some similarity with human anatomy and thus both species can share common diseases. So it was prohibited to eat in order to prevent epidemics/pandemics. There is some mentions of this in Jewish sources, but it mostly sounds like an afterthought.

--

[1] https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%99%D7%92%D7%90%D7%9C_%D7%9...

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q58348355

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

#203

Post by ramblerman »

If insects were such a valuable and risk free source of nutrition wouldn't we see a lot more human cultures eating them?

They've been around forever, but somehow we share a mostly common disgust for eating bugs. Is it farfetched to assume that perhaps that disgust allowed us to survive.

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

#204

Post by mypastself »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #197
mypastself wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re likely alluding to articles posted on The World Economic Forum’s website. WEF is a group of wealthy, influential individuals whose goals include building what they believe is a more sustainable global economy (and society). Some of their more infamous articles have become memes (“You’ll own nothing and be happy”, “You will eat the bugs”). The kookier versions of anti-WEF arguments veer into conspiracy theory…

I checked out their site, their news section has this link at the moment: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-world-econom... > Own nothing, be happy. You may have heard the phrase. It started life as a screenshot, culled from the internet by an anonymous antisemitic account on the image board 4chan. “Own nothing, be happy – The Jew World Order 2030,″ said the post, which went viral among extremists. Well…

The article was removed from the website after the uproar, 4chan crazies or not. It’s preserved here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s...

The author later clarified they were predicting a possible future, “for better or for worse”. They didn’t outright deny they supported that specific idea, though, nor does it directly contradict WEF’s stated goals (although it’s on a much shorter timeline).

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

#205

Post by tommit »

ferruck wrote: post #199
tommit wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I have noticed that with a lot of HN threads that resolve around eating meat. It gets to a level of tinfoil-hat that I'm absolutely not used to on this website, but maybe I've simply not been here long enough. The other day someone unironically said they feel there is "a war on protein" going on, because apparently it's more likely to have an "elite intellectual class" in the background, scheming to deprive us…

The most interesting part - at least for me - is how unapologetic such conspiracies can be expressed in these "no more meat" threads, whereas other conspiracies in other threads are heavily downvoted and countered through comments. I slowly tend to believe that at least a vocal minority of the Bay Area tech bros are really creeping out on the idea that they might be loosing their beloved meat. Just for disclosure: I…

That's really well put, and I think is exactly what strikes me as off about these threads as opposed to what I'm used to on HN. It really seems like these conspiracy theories are way more indulged here than they would in any other thread.

I'm with you, also from Germany and very rarely eat meat (my rule of thumb is that if it's already dead and in front of me, I'm not going to save anyone by throwing it away -- think BBQs and the likes. Or when I visit my grandparents). Also, I'm firm in the camp that everyone can make their own choices, and don't shame anybody for eating meat. I just don't think it's viable going forward and I've made the choice a few years back to limit myself, because to me it seems only logical. Also like you said, it simply shouldn't be subsidized as it is. If someone wants to eat meat badly enough that they're willing to pay large prices -- great. If not, there are numerous protein sources out there that take less toll on the environment.

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

#206

Post by nivertech »

ls-lah_33 wrote: post #188
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…

Can't cooking solve this problem? Rare meat is problematic for this reason. Also my understanding is that some traditions in Judaism and Islam even for allow insect consumption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy_in_humans#Rejectio...

Kashrut doesn't says that one need to cook meat, the only exception is being liver, which requires special preparation.

So beef carpaccio, or steak tartar are perfectly Kosher. Exception are Ethiopian Jews who traditionally don't eat popular Ethiopian raw meat dishes.

IMO if something can't be eaten raw - it's best to be avoided in any form.

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

#207

Post by lelanthran »

gspetr wrote: post #77
lelanthran wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans have been eating insects for a long time. In south africa they eat ants, china they eat scorpio, thailand they eat crickets... I'm in South Africa. I've never heard of the ants thing, but it is most definitely NOT NORMAL over here to eat those things; rich people may do it as a delicacy, like they would eat caviar, but it never was normal to eat insects over here.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33396313/ "Indigenous Knowledge about Consumption of Edible Insects in South Africa" >Edible insects are a nutritious diet and play an important role in people's livelihoods in rural areas. Just how many rich people are out there in SA's rural areas?

From that study:

> This might be the main reason why the consumption of insects is largely practiced in rural areas where high levels of unemployment and people with no formal education are found. In addition, people who are unemployed consume edible insects more because they have to do so to meet nutritional requirement needs.

Well, that actually explains why I have not seen or even heard of people eating insects in the 40-odd years that I've lived here: I'm not usually talking to unemployed people in rural areas who face famine without insects.

Unemployed rural people are still in the minority, and that still makes it 'not-normal'. The poor people and unemployed people I see in non-rural South Africa still don't eat insects.

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

#209

Post by nivertech »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #184
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…

Insects and crustaceans (shrimps, lobsters, etc.) are closely related; I always joke that shrimps are just under water bugs. Lots of people that are disgusted by one, enjoy eating the other. Disgust is mostly cultural and learned. Obviously, some of our gag reflexes are about detecting things that are bad. Like rotting meat or things that have gone off. But then we ferment and rot lots of things intentionally and the…

> Insects and crustaceans (shrimps, lobsters, etc.) are closely related ...

One important difference: salt-water animals (including crustaceans) harbor parasites which are less compatible with humans, for them humans are dead-end, they can't close the complex reproduction cycle. Land insects and fresh-water crustaceans (e.g. crayfish) are much more dangerous for humans. Lobster sashimi is much safer than eating a raw crayfish from a river or lake. The latter can cause a serious lungs disease.

> if you eat fresh produce from your garden, there are likely to come some small critters along with that.

I once found a caterpillar inside an eggplant ;)

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

#210

Post by ZeroGravitas »

mypastself wrote: post #204
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I checked out their site, their news section has this link at the moment: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-world-econom... > Own nothing, be happy. You may have heard the phrase. It started life as a screenshot, culled from the internet by an anonymous antisemitic account on the image board 4chan. “Own nothing, be happy – The Jew World Order 2030,″ said the post, which went viral among extremists. Well…

The article was removed from the website after the uproar, 4chan crazies or not. It’s preserved here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s... The author later clarified they were predicting a possible future, “for better or for worse”. They didn’t outright deny they supported that specific idea, though, nor does it directly contradict WEF’s stated goals (although it’s on a much shorter timelin…

So the secret conspiracy is clean energy, self-driving taxis, protected environment, and more leisure time due to increased automation?

And when intentionally publishing the plan for this secret conspiracy, on their website, cunningly disguised as a fictional take on the near future, they accidentally left in bits where they worried about digital surveillance which luckly the anti-semites on 4Chan noticed, and saved us from this dark future?

> Once in a while I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. Nowhere I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me.

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