If anyone wants to get into this game, I'll sell you edible-insects.com and https://twitter.com/edibleinsects :)
Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
31–40 of 113 posts
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#32I grew up in Zimbabwe, Southern Africa. I speak in general that eating insects is a delicacy and is favoured as a snack most of the time.An example, the [1] mopani worm is an excellent source of protein and is increadibly cheap in Southern Africa.The guts are removed, cleaned and dried in the sun before being packaged for sale. They also taste delicious once fried in butter and mixed with vegetables.
It might be a novelty right now in the western world but its been years of tradition in African or Asian countries.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#33The article capitalizes on a popular foreboding about resource limits with a thrilling "ick" factor, but it's premise is unsubstantial.
I once met an ancient Jewish gentleman who, due to poverty, had been forced to eat lobsters as a youth. In that day they were considered on par with rats as a food source (not to mention they were forbidden by his religious culture) and he had never recovered from the experience, and still considered them revolting.
I can relate: if it became popular with the youth of tomorrow to broil rats and serve them at market price, I'd probably never get on board.
Like insects, Lobster was once a cheap and common food resource. Money could be made by packing and shipping it of to places where it was exotic and unheard of to the majority of people, and so it's image was specially crafted to make profit.
But unlike insects, lobster had the advantage of a fresh market. It was only viewed as the food of impoverished immigrants in port cities where it was common.
The vast majority of the market, at least in the USA, considers insects icky to look at our touch, let alone to eat.
More substantially, I think any serious study would find that people's eating habits rarely change based on broad, even minded assessment of future resource limits. Current rates of meat consumption are a good example: we know it can't last, but few people change their diet so that their great grandchildren can eat more chicken.
I do think insects will be a food source in the future, but that will be because a clever marketer discovers the killer bug that is both exotic and delicious. In general I think it will be a very long and slow process by which everyday insects like crickets become palatable to the status quo.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just unfamiliarity - you would have the same reaction to a prawn if you hadn't grown up with it. And many outsiders would have a similar reaction to squid cooked in its ink (Spain), half-rotted herring (Scandinavia), or even just strongly flavoured blue cheese (everywhere). For that matter, lots of people feel icky about fresh tomatoes. It's not likely to become something which is mainstream overnight, but there…
Or any kind of meat -- just a fuckin chuck of animal muscle, tendon, gristle, sometimes even skin. I think there'd be a lot more vegetarians if everyone had to do their own butchering.
Actually, butchering has given me a new appreciation for meat and the variety of cuts.
It definitely gets you over the "ew, there's blood in my pack of chicken breasts."
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#35As with bacteria, human living conditions will get quite ugly near our population's stationary phase.[1] Exponential growth does not last forever.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#36The article capitalizes on a popular foreboding about resource limits with a thrilling "ick" factor, but it's premise is unsubstantial. I once met an ancient Jewish gentleman who, due to poverty, had been forced to eat lobsters as a youth. In that day they were considered on par with rats as a food source (not to mention they were forbidden by his religious culture) and he had never recovered from the experience, and…
The article is about cricket flour, not eating whole crickets. Cricket flour products are already on sale in hundreds of stores. The key is to mass produce the flour as right now it's quite expensive. That's what's specifically addressed in the article, not the issue of convincing people to eat it in the first place.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just unfamiliarity - you would have the same reaction to a prawn if you hadn't grown up with it. And many outsiders would have a similar reaction to squid cooked in its ink (Spain), half-rotted herring (Scandinavia), or even just strongly flavoured blue cheese (everywhere). For that matter, lots of people feel icky about fresh tomatoes. It's not likely to become something which is mainstream overnight, but there…
Or any kind of meat -- just a fuckin chuck of animal muscle, tendon, gristle, sometimes even skin. I think there'd be a lot more vegetarians if everyone had to do their own butchering.
> I think there'd be a lot more vegetarians if everyone had to do their own butchering
I know I would be. Of course I already knew I would be if I had to raise my own food.
When I look at it the only way I can eat meat is because I can ignore the fact that it was an animal at the point I eat it.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#38Don't think so. We'll rather have lab-grown meat.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lobster is a bug; it used to be 'ick' and now its 'yum'. The ick factor is cultural. No reason the OP can't be right - if bugs are tasty, and some people start eating them, and then more people, they could easily become a regular thing.
Yeah after reading the article I am slightly less skeptical - the headline, as usual, war promising way too much. That said we are going to look at a timeline of decades rather than tomorrow. I mean Tofu has been around for how long? And it is still somewhat of the beaten path.
People already eat bugs in other countries where bugs are hardly disgusting compared to their usual food. Convincing Americans to eat bug food might be harder, but Americans only make up of 5% of the earth's population. I've consumed roasted tarantulas in asian countries and they taste quite good, so I can see that insect consumption in those countries will be quite a bit easier.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#40Unlikely. They are icky, unappealing and do not have the "man" quality one gets from real meat. Food is mostly about taste and convenience today, because we have access to enough of it - insects doesn't really give you either. In short it is highly unlikely that I will wake up tomorrow and eat insects, nor that the majority in the developed world will. And yes shrimp may technically be insects. Technically correct do…
Lobster is a bug; it used to be 'ick' and now its 'yum'. The ick factor is cultural. No reason the OP can't be right - if bugs are tasty, and some people start eating them, and then more people, they could easily become a regular thing.
Lobsters, shrimps or mussles are actually delicious, and are thus expensive. Insects or dog/cat meat on the other aren't, as otherwise they would have been adopted into worldwide diet long time ago. So today they still remain a cheap source of food in some third world countries.