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Farm 432

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Re: Farm 432

#61

Post by xanderstrike »

fastball wrote: post #50
mmanfrin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pasture-raised beef still uses an obscene amount of water compared to every other protein we eat , by a very large margin.

Pardon my possible ignorance, but shouldn't all water consumed in the process be recycled when the cows + humans urinate? Water doesn't just disappear.

True, but it doesn't immediately become potable. If you're in, say, California where water usage vastly outstrips rainfall, the amount of water you consume is very important. All the water beyond what you get naturally has to be run through expensive purification and transportation.

Re: Farm 432

#62

Post by bch »

headShrinker wrote: post #37
warble wrote: post #3

I 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 are closely related to Spiders... yet are considered a delicacy. I even think to my self as I eat lobster, "spider, spider, spider" yet I never get grossed out at eating it. On the other hand I can barely hold a spider much less eat one...

> ... yet are considered a delicacy.

But they haven't _always_ been considered a delicacy: http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-06/heres-how-low-rent-lob...

Re: Farm 432

#63

Post by autarch »

This is so weird. Are people really so set on eating animal protein that they'd rather eat insects than just eat plants?

Yes, this is incredibly more efficient than eating most animal products, but so are plant-based foods, which already exist, taste pretty good, and most importantly, are not completely and utterly revolting.

Re: Farm 432

#64

Post by beloch »

warble wrote: post #3

I 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…

For the record, a soldier fly is about as closely related to a shrimp as you are to a Cod. Same phylum, different class.

Re: Farm 432

#65

Post by Haegin »

ch wrote: post #18

At first I was totally grossed out by the though of the entire process. It's tough to see how the sausage is made, tougher still with the cultural aversion to eating bugs. Then I watched the video where they are frying up the bugs in the pan, and though "How can they be so thoughtless to use metal on a non-stick pan"! So perhaps I'm past my aversion to eating bugs! Maybe not.

I just went back to watch that video to judge them on their metal utensil usage. I'm still weirded out by eating bugs though.

Re: Farm 432

#66

Post by jimbokun »

Recoil42 wrote: post #57
warble wrote: post #3

I 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…

>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. Generally, we eat the innards, not the exoskeleton.

At a Japanese noodle place in NYC, my wife and I were served shrimp with our miso ramen, with the exoskeleton still in place (you were meant to peel and eat it yourself).

My wife wanted no part of it, although she likes shrimp with the eyeballs and antenna and stuff already removed. Go figure.

Re: Farm 432

#67

Post by [deleted] »

settsu wrote: post #40
udev wrote: post #25

Reminds me of the movie Snowpiercer, where there is a scene with an industrial size device that creates protein bars from insects.

Geez, spoiler aler... never mind...

[deleted]

Re: Farm 432

#68

Post by tburns »

udev wrote: post #25

Reminds me of the movie Snowpiercer, where there is a scene with an industrial size device that creates protein bars from insects.

That's the first thing I thought of as well when I saw this, especially once I got down to this image:

http://static.squarespace.com/static/53d17b47e4b0d5933c1e4a4...

Re: Farm 432

#69

Post by jqm »

At an earlier point in our evolutionary history we no doubt ate plenty of insects. Grubs, grasshoppers, crickets, ants, termites... pretty much whatever we could get our hands on.

This practice was generally discarded by humanity except for niche pockets here and there.

Why? I mean... there must be a reason humans (for the most part) stopped eating insects.

Re: Farm 432

#70

Post by randomdata »

volker48 wrote: post #22

Why not just let the animals pasture and eat grass instead of feeding them grain? Factory farms are the big problem.

I grew up around cattle and back then there was no question that grain-finished beef produced the best quality for the buyer. It is incredibly fascinating to me to see how the marketing of grass-fed meat has actually changed taste preferences enough that we even question why we use grain today.
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