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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)

#471

Post by cnity »

weberer wrote: post #403
cnity wrote: post #251

It's wild to me to see such an anti-insect eating tirade on HN. Just observe the comments here: almost every highly upvoted comment is anti-insect, and the comments that express any positive sentiment towards eating insect is flooded with angry responses. Bizarre.

It's bizarre to realize that most people don't want to eat bugs? How many people do you see eating bugs on an average day for this to be a shock to you?

No, it's bizarre how many commenters in here are trying to stop _me_ from eating bugs (via a social disgust reaction).

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

#472

Post by cnity »

prometheus76 wrote: post #339
cnity wrote: post #251

It's wild to me to see such an anti-insect eating tirade on HN. Just observe the comments here: almost every highly upvoted comment is anti-insect, and the comments that express any positive sentiment towards eating insect is flooded with angry responses. Bizarre.

Don't you want to "follow the science"? Science says insects are a major vector for parasitic disease in humans. So should we ignore the science now because other science?

I don't think I said anything of the sort.

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

#473

Post by wonderbore »

BrainsPachanga wrote: post #152
wonderbore wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chapulines are not eaten raw, like most bugs they're fried or toasted in a pan or comal, but the study shows that parasites may survive that. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapulines

The study clearly says that cooking them significantly improves the safety, what’s your source?

It’s right there in the document, assuming that the comma here was a typo:

> Despite, food preparation processes parasite allergens may still be detected.

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

#474

Post by wonderbore »

krona wrote: post #65
wonderbore wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ask yourself why humans refrained from eating them Plenty of humans don't eat plenty of meats and sea animals either. Traditions don't necessarily contain good wisdom. I think seeing a bug feast on feces and then having it sneak up on your food stashes might trigger an obvious reaction (similar to pigs and the reason why some don't eat them)

> Traditions don't necessarily contain good wisdom. What is the bad wisdom here, that eating insects, rats, various other disease harbouring vertebrates is actually misplaced medieval health & safety?

Correct. All of our food contains parasites, pathogens, and deadly chemicals, even those we eat the most like pork, salmon and cassava. The difference is that we learned how to deal with those risks. Literally water can be fatal sometimes, this issue is not specific to bugs.

The study at hand specifically mentions that further research is required in order to reach the same level of safety for bugs as well.

I don’t think there’s an exact correlation between safety and “what we eat,” which is rather more a consequence of availability and customs. Lots of countries don’t eat horse meat or snakes. Neither one is particularly unsafe.

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

#475

Post by jmprspret »

hnbad wrote: post #180
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.

I'm intrigued that you can recognize fried or minced pork by smell and distinguish it from beef or poultry by smell alone. I know a lot of people have an aversion to mutton as it can have a very gamey aroma to it, but I wasn't aware people perceive pork as similarly intense.

Any pig meat has a very very distinct smell to me.

I can also recognise cooked poultry vs beef by smell (more so when raw, but when cooked I'm sure I can figure it out as well).

I thought most people could.

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

#476

Post by simonebrunozzi »

antirez wrote: post #353
Shindi wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to be direct, I know your post has a ton of interesting knowledge, but it was impossible to read. Have you considered using newlines or breaks? You probably have amazing ideas and more people would read them if it was easier to read (my 2c)

No offence, but I would rather suggest improving your reading skills. Books don't have newlines or spacing, mostly: do you have issues reading a novel as well? That would be a major problem. But I bet you don't have any issues reading books, because this demand of spacing is a lot stronger among US readers and I bet is mostly cultural rather than a real issue.

I see your point. However, books have a few advantages that allow reading them with less issues:

1) higher resolution (printed letters are better seen by the eye than the average letter on a screen)

2) narrower lines (easier to spot the next line)

3) at least a bit more spacing between lines

Finally, when the topic is not fiction, but stuff that requires a lot of attention to digest, perhaps paragraphs and newlines can improve the reading experience.

p.s. you probably meant offense with an "s" (I used to do the same typo, and we're both Italians)

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

#477

Post by throwaway09223 »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #447
throwaway09223 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true, and you are both more likely to get sick and more likely to die from fresh vegetables than from steak. The primary contaminant in steak is E. coli. You are more likely to consume E. coli from a salad than from a steak.

The data doesn't back this up in any country I can find. A quick google search yields a few results, each pointing to the same conclusion: https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution/attribution-... > Meat and poultry, a combination of four animal food categories, Beef, Game, Pork, and Poultry, accounted for fewer illnesses, but for 29% of deaths. Poultry accounted for the most deaths (19%); many of those were ca…

The data does back this up. You're looking at all kinds of meat there and not steak.

Steak is significantly safer than other types of meat, and steak in particular is significantly safer than salad.

As your link notes, chicken is one of the worst offenders

Your data supports my point, not yours.

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

#478

Post by steve_adams_86 »

kentrado wrote: post #466
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This simply isn’t true. From a health as well as safety standpoint, chicken correlates with worth health outcomes and definitely leads to more illnesses.

The salmonella you get from undercooked chicken is less dangerous than the parasites in under cooked pork.

The difference is that almost all chicken is contaminated while very little pork is.

If we compare contaminated meat, okay, maybe pork is more dangerous. If we compare what people actually encounter, pork appears much less dangerous.

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

#479

Post by steve_adams_86 »

kentrado wrote: post #467
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data doesn’t back this up though. More people get sick from chicken.

We are not talking about quantity, we are talking about severity. Plus, you can't use modern data for this because modern stock raising methods mitigate a lot of the dangers from pork. The parasites from undercooked pork can be very dangerous.

Why wouldn’t we use modern data? We’re not living in the past.

Are you talking about trichinosis? I can see that being more problematic than salmonella in historical contexts, but again, it’s highly treatable today and rarely fatal if it isn’t treated.

Am I missing some other kind of infection?

Edit: Now I see it, you were referring to the past in the parent comment. I’ve confused this thread for another - sorry about that!

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

#480

Post by eth0up »

j-bos wrote: post #439
eth0up wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ELI5 Hmm. That would come with the more frightening risk of HN community scrutiny, a sort of indelible scabies of the retrospective consciousness. What the hell.. If you're 5, or any age with a palate for insects, especially centipedes [1], cook them first or consider sugar free gummy worms until mom can prepare them properly. More seriously, it depends largely on behavior, ie personal hygiene, industrial standards,…

Thanks so much for the excellent comments. You seem familiar with the topic, so a question: How do you convince a doctor to actually check for parasites? Two years ago I was bitten by many, many triatomines in a subtropical environment and have recently been seeing symptoms similar to chagas disease, but no doctor I've spoken to is interested in testing for it. I understand it's not an everyday concern, buy the resis…

I've been researching triatomines and am learning a bit, most of which is not pleasant. I now realize I've seen and even photographed some species. They are in the US, certainly Florida, Texas and many other states. According to an edu source, it's estimated that only 1% of infections in the US are diagnosed or otherwise accounted for.

There's definitely ample credible evidence that the risk is significant and your concerns valid.

I thank you for reminding me of this insect and the protozoa it carries. Credible sources claim it too will be posing problems, increasingly. Current policy, unfortunately, isn't considering it yet. The rising presence of the problem coupled with the tendency for initially asymptomatic infections but often inevitable demise of the host should be taken seriously.

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