I don't know how much of the process of raising and making flower from insects is proprietary, but some kind of open source knowledge base might provide appeal for people to refine production and innovate on consumption.
Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
41–50 of 113 posts
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#42Unlikely. 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…
There have been successful attempts at simply grinding the insects and making them into "meatballs" etc. All that's left over is a sand-like form of them that is highly nutritious and can be processed further. Sustainability may be a choice today, but it won't be in the future. That's not even a debate. Looking at r/fitness and trillions of similar boards online, people are readily willing to chug down any sort of po…
You can also convert soy into 'meatballs' as well. It hasn't caught on widely either. Taste is the deciding factor.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#43Earlier 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.
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.
Oyster are expensive because rarity. They used to be food for poor people.
http://www.missfoodwise.com/2013/03/beef-stout-and-oyster-pi...
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#44Earlier 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.
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.
I hate to correct you, but this isn't correct (your 'downvoted' status might reflect this).
Canine / felines are carnivores (omnivores these days, but you get the gist) and their muscle structure / diets cause them to taste 'off' and be tough fleshwise. Not to mention that they're worth more as biological weapons / companions.
There are also more scientific reasons, for example:
There was a quick deterioration in the men's physical condition during this journey. Both men suffered dizziness; nausea; abdominal pain; irrationality; mucosal fissuring; skin, hair, and nail loss; and the yellowing of eyes and skin. Later Mawson noticed a dramatic change in his travelling companion. Mertz seemed to lose the will to move and wished only to remain in his sleeping bag. He began to deteriorate rapidly with diarrhoea and madness. On one occasion Mertz refused to believe he was suffering from frostbite and bit off the tip of his own little finger. This was soon followed by violent raging—Mawson had to sit on his companion's chest and hold down his arms to prevent him from damaging their tent. Mertz suffered further seizures before falling into a coma and dying on 8 January 1913.[8]
It was unknown at the time that Husky liver contains extremely high levels of vitamin A. It was also not known that such levels of vitamin A could cause liver damage to humans.[9] With six dogs between them (with a liver on average weighing 1 kg), it is thought that the pair ingested enough liver to bring on a condition known as Hypervitaminosis A. However, Mertz may have suffered more because he found the tough muscle tissue difficult to eat and therefore ate more of the liver than Mawson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Mawson#Australasian_An...
It is highly likely that if those explorers had asked the original breeders of said animals, they'd have been told strongly that eating them was a bad idea.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#45Earlier 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.
I have a friend who is an entomologist, a doctor of entomology no less. He doesn't eat lobster, or any other type of mollusc, on the basis that they filter-feed and will quite happily chow down on faeces, just like any other insect. Mind you he finds the texture of boiled eggs repulsive too, so it might just be him.
So do plants, more or less.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#46I'd try it. I eat raw fish, urchins, rare eggs, rare-ish meat of mammals and fowl. Who knows? Who would know if I would like it better than me?
I've eaten whole insects including crickets and the flavor was whatever. The texture of the legs was like trying to eat the tail of a shrimp - impossible. I'll be interested to see what the processing is like as I'm not sure about the utility of a flour that includes fine grains of exoskeleton. Proteins turn into magical things during cooking and shells don't do quite as well. Flour hints at baking, but I don't think it would function nearly as well.
From the first link on google, the baking results look like it doesn't form anything that can trap air or steam, so dense and mushy seems likely.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#47Earlier 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.
I have a friend who is an entomologist, a doctor of entomology no less. He doesn't eat lobster, or any other type of mollusc, on the basis that they filter-feed and will quite happily chow down on faeces, just like any other insect. Mind you he finds the texture of boiled eggs repulsive too, so it might just be him.
> lobster, or any other type of mollusc
Lobsters aren't molluscs, they're crustaceans.
Not even the same phylum.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#48Don't think so. We'll rather have lab-grown meat.
I'm looking forward more at Soylent[0] than lab-grown meat.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#49Isn't cricket feed mostly corn and soy? Seems like it would be more efficient to eat the raw ingredients rather than the crickets.
Crickets are less metabolically demanding than humans. We need tricksy things like fiber and animal protein, but crickets can get by on simple sugars and cellulose.
Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow
#50Earlier 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 suspect there'd be a lot more carnivores if people had to grow their own veggies, too.