i'm trying to wrap my head around this, but im leaning towards engineering vegetables with high protein... or enhancing nut production.
Farm 432
21–30 of 151 posts
Re: Farm 432
#22Why not just let the animals pasture and eat grass instead of feeding them grain? Factory farms are the big problem.
Re: Farm 432
#23I talked to my kids about eating insects the other day with the expected results in the form of 'ew' and such. We've spent so much time in modern society associating insects with disease it's hard to dissassociate. For some reason shrimp which are essentially bugs are no problem because (I think) they come from the ocean, so there's an obvious mental line that can dissassociate them from other bugs. This is a great i…
Lobsters too. Can you imagine steaming and eating a two-pound cockroach? But that's basically what a lobster is. I predict that techniques will be found to make good plant-based meat substitutes or other artificial meat before anyone figures out how to make us happy with eating insects.
> Can you imagine steaming and eating a two-pound cockroach? But that's basically what a lobster is.
Cockroaches are insects. Lobsters are not. There is a huge difference there.
Re: Farm 432
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mealworm powder is catching on in health circles. I think the essential difference is that you never have to see the legs, shells, compound eyes, etc. that scream "Insect!". Grind these up, mix them into sauce or a stew, and I doubt I'd care, even if I knew the origin, just like I can see the inside of a slaughterhouse and can still eat ground meat.
A lot of what we eat (steaks, chicken nuggetts, hamburger, bacon) is dissasociated with the source form of the meat. This should probably be the inroad. If people get used to the idea that they're ingesting insects anyhow, then maybe the rest gets easier? I dunno..
What is the point of eating insects, though? Why not just eat lentils?
Re: Farm 432
#25Reminds me of the movie Snowpiercer, where there is a scene with an industrial size device that creates protein bars from insects.
Re: Farm 432
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lobsters too. Can you imagine steaming and eating a two-pound cockroach? But that's basically what a lobster is. I predict that techniques will be found to make good plant-based meat substitutes or other artificial meat before anyone figures out how to make us happy with eating insects.
> Can you imagine steaming and eating a two-pound cockroach? But that's basically what a lobster is. Cockroaches are insects. Lobsters are not. There is a huge difference there.
They meet up much closer in the evolutionary tree than things like pigs or cows. What exactly is the huge difference? They seem fairly similar overall, aside from size and where they live.
Re: Farm 432
#27Why not just let the animals pasture and eat grass instead of feeding them grain? Factory farms are the big problem.
Pasture-raised beef still uses an obscene amount of water compared to every other protein we eat, by a very large margin.
Re: Farm 432
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lobsters too. Can you imagine steaming and eating a two-pound cockroach? But that's basically what a lobster is. I predict that techniques will be found to make good plant-based meat substitutes or other artificial meat before anyone figures out how to make us happy with eating insects.
> Can you imagine steaming and eating a two-pound cockroach? But that's basically what a lobster is. Cockroaches are insects. Lobsters are not. There is a huge difference there.
But not as different as, say, lobsters and cows. Lobsters and Cockroaches are both nocturnal, omnivorous, scavenging, arthropods.
Re: Farm 432
#29For those in the Bay Area, I highly recommend checking out Don Bugito. They've done a great job of making insects palatable for the uninitiated. Everyone I've taken to their food stand at Off the Grid has ended up trying some bugs (despite insisting they would not). You can also buy them pre-packaged at the Ferry Building. http://www.donbugito.com/
Re: Farm 432
#30Even if they just ground up so they are unrecognizable and added into other foods, that would be a huge accomplishment. Imagine getting 5% of your calories from insect sources, without knowing, an it replacing something like starch. It could be added to virtually anything.
Maybe as an ingredient for breakfast cereals, muesli bars and things like that?