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Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

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Re: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

#41

Post by duncancarroll »

jonnathanson wrote: post #35
felipemora wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seafood can be quite stinky also and yet lots of people have no problem eating it.

Exactly. And honestly, if you've ever eaten a whole, unpeeled shrimp or prawn before, it's not too much of a stretch going from there to something like crickets. They are both arthropods. They are distantly related. They look kinda-sorta-not-too-dissimilar in their natural state. The key difference is size. There's a lot more meat in your typical prawn, and this allows you to peal and prep it in a way that distances…

It's possible some crickets are less stinky than others. But man, that smell... Shrimp, etc don't stink like that.

Re: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

#42

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #9
noondip wrote: post #6

> The tiny insects have been eaten in developing nations for centuries, but now consumers in the Western world are increasingly accepting them as an efficient and sustainable source of protein. Every food has protein in it. Bananas have protein. Tomatoes have protein. All plant foods have a complete amino acid profile fit for human consumption. In fact, protein is the easiest macronutrient to get enough of, provided…

When you want to eat protein, what do you eat? Meat. It usually comes from livestock (chicken, pork, beef, fish, etc). Crickets are far more sustainable than those conventional sources of protein.

I never want to eat protein. I do, however, often want to eat meat. It has nothing to do with meat being high in protein and everything to do with it being tasty as fuck.

Re: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

#43

Post by GordonS »

noondip wrote: post #23
maxerickson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All plant foods have a complete amino acid profile fit for human consumption. That's a really weird phrase. I guess suggestions that a protein complete diet is easier when eating meat are also a bit overwrought, but it's possible to eat plants and end up not getting all essential amino acids which is usually what is meant when "complete" is mentioned together with protein.

> it's possible to eat plants and end up not getting all essential amino acids No, that isn't possible. You could eat nothing but potatoes, or even mangoes, and still get enough protein. There isn't a single whole plant food which is completely lacking in any essential amino acid. How could it? Plants can't "hunt" and "eat" other plants - they must synthesize all amino acids themselves. The "complete protein" myth is…

> You could eat nothing but potatoes, or even mangoes, and still get enough protein

And probably diabetes too!

Re: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

#45

Post by GordonS »

DanI-S wrote: post #5
wnevets wrote: post #3

IIRC it's been shown that cricket farming at scale is no more effective than cow/chicken farming

I'm one of the founders of Tiny Farms. I think you're probably recalling an article published in PLOS ONE last year that suggested the sustainability of crickets might not meet the hype. We were obviously very interested in the study! It turns out that the paper missed some crucial factors that make insects a sustainable, efficient protein source. I guest-wrote this post with some details; do take a look if you're in…

I guess another factor is space.

For one thing you can go more 3D with crickets, whereas with chickens you would have to build additional levels if you wanted to 'stack' them.

Also, many people care about the welfare of the animals they eat, such as making sure they have space to roam and live some kind of life before they are slaughtered. I doubt anyone will care if you cram crickets in so tight they can barely move. So at least in terms of space, I imagine you're going to need much less land for a cricket farm.

Re: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

#46

Post by GordonS »

DanI-S wrote: post #21
bduerst wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sooo tl;dr: is that chickens use more water, produce more manure, and tend to be butchered away from the farms, but the study was still correct in it's food to protein conversions being almost the same between poultry and crickets?

I guess I'd summarize the feed conversion part as follows: - Crickets are slightly better than poultry at converting poultry feed into protein. - Crickets are great at converting processed grocery store waste into protein; poultry can't do this at all. - Both species are awful at converting low quality food waste (a mix of chicken poop and straw) into protein. - The efficient feed conversion of modern poultry comes o…

> Both species are awful at converting low quality food waste (a mix of chicken poop and straw) into protein

Wait - what? Do farmers really try to feed their chickens with chicken shit?!

Re: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

#47

Post by noondip »

GordonS wrote: post #43
noondip wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's possible to eat plants and end up not getting all essential amino acids No, that isn't possible. You could eat nothing but potatoes, or even mangoes, and still get enough protein. There isn't a single whole plant food which is completely lacking in any essential amino acid. How could it? Plants can't "hunt" and "eat" other plants - they must synthesize all amino acids themselves. The "complete protein" myth is…

> You could eat nothing but potatoes, or even mangoes, and still get enough protein And probably diabetes too!

Oh, come on - you don't really think so, do you? How many people do you know with diabetes as a result of eating potatoes or mangoes? Check out Starch Solution by John McDougall, if you're being serious. Here's a small tidbit on it - https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2006nl/july/glycemic.htm - the guy literally uses potatoes and other starchy vegetables to treat diabetes.

> there is little evidence that total carbohydrate intake is associated with the development of type 2 diabetes. Rather, a stronger association has been observed between total fat and saturated fat intake and type 2 diabetes

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/27/9/2266.full

> The available data support the idea that consumption of diets high in total carbohydrate does not adversely affect insulin sensitivity compared with high fat diets. Animal data suggest that simple sugars, in particular fructose, have adverse effects on insulin action, but adverse effects have not been shown conclusively in humans.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11584106

Re: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

#48

Post by ilaksh »

If there really isn't a way to do even small scale fish or eggs efficiently then we don't need to eat insects if that isn't part of our culture. There are plenty of other satisfying ways to get adequate protein, such as nuts and beans. Hundreds of millions of people live healthy lives without meat or insects.

An approach to making it more tractable to meet food needs is to integrate it back into our urban/suburban environments and take advantage of advanced indoor farming which can be carefully monitored and tended by humans or robots, which can dramatically reduce resource usage for agriculture and greatly improve land use.

http://tinyvillages.org

Re: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

#49

Post by noondip »

jqm wrote: post #39
noondip wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I had explained in the parent comment, all food has protein, so it's not necessary to specially source it from a particular food. Especially when that food appears extremely unpalatable (or am I the only one who doesn't salivate at the sight of crickets?).

All food may have protein, but all food does not have essential amino acids (which cannot be made by your body) in the quantities required to maintain health. This is why non-meat eaters must be sure to add certain foods (or certain combination of foods) to their diet if they want to stay healthy. Not bagging on vegetarianism, but the idea you can get sufficient protein by just eating any old plant is.... wrong. And…

> All food may have protein, but all food does not have essential amino acids (which cannot be made by your body) in the quantities required to maintain health.

> the idea you can get sufficient protein by just eating any old plant is.... wrong.

You're quite mistaken. If what you say were true, a warning of it would be clearly made by medical and nutritional authorities. Alas, no respectable organization says it, precisely because it's a myth. You can easily search on Google to find evidence which contradicts your post. Here are just the first two results I found when looking at potatoes as an example:

> The high nutritive value of potato protein can be understood when its composition is compared with that of whole wheat (Table 2). Apart from histidine, it contains substantially more of all the essential amino-acids ; this superiority is particularly striking for lysine, the amount present being similar to that in a typical animal protein.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13536266

> For a 120 pound adult, five potatoes (960 calories) supply over 100% of the recommended intake for all essential amino acids.

> It's pretty difficult for an adult to eat a plant-based, vegetarian diet that doesn't provide all EAAs, as long as caloric needs are met.

> Finally - The pool of AAs that our body uses to manufacture its own proteins isn't limited by what we eat. Normal daily turnover of our cells provides a substantial pool from which to draw amino acids. Bacteria that line our colon also manufacture AAs, including EAAs, that we can utilize.

> It is a misconception that plants provide "incomplete protein", regardless of what Ms. Lappe advanced in her 1971 book, "Diet For A Small Planet."

http://fanaticcook.blogspot.com/2008/04/if-all-you-ate-were-...

Re: Tiny Farms Raises Seed Round as Cricket Farming Heats Up

#50

Post by [deleted] »

duncancarroll wrote: post #41
jonnathanson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. And honestly, if you've ever eaten a whole, unpeeled shrimp or prawn before, it's not too much of a stretch going from there to something like crickets. They are both arthropods. They are distantly related. They look kinda-sorta-not-too-dissimilar in their natural state. The key difference is size. There's a lot more meat in your typical prawn, and this allows you to peal and prep it in a way that distances…

It's possible some crickets are less stinky than others. But man, that smell... Shrimp, etc don't stink like that.

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