Earlier quoted context omitted.
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To be fair, the original comment read like an Infowars headline.
To be fair, the comment you're replying to is borderline offensive.
Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
51–60 of 495 posts
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've been eating other foods for a very long time, and we've developed methods to handle, and prevent, the parasites. Cook meat, make sure fruits and vegetables are not blighted, ferment dairy, various preservation methods from pickling to canning to smoking. The list of methods is enormous. We haven't been eating insects except in times of famine. We have not yet developed methods of dealing with it.
Humans have been eating insects for a long time. In south africa they eat ants, china they eat scorpio, thailand they eat crickets... The ants and the scorpio are quite tasty IMO. On the other hand, I know of places where their casual vegetables are dangerous because their hold traces of animals feces with pathogens but you couldn't tell when buying them. And finally, I remember eating the best eggs ever from my moth…
> Humans have been eating insects for a long time. In south africa they eat ants, china they eat scorpio, thailand they eat crickets...
I'm in South Africa. I've never heard of the ants thing, but it is most definitely NOT NORMAL over here to eat those things; rich people may do it as a delicacy, like they would eat caviar, but it never was normal to eat insects over here.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#53Possibly like any other food source, then? Boils down to how they're grown, handled, prepared. Arguably, the wet markets in Wuhan wouldn't have been such a disease nightmare if the cages of live animals weren't kept one atop the other, dripping feces and other fluids between species and breaking the inter-species barrier.
> Boils down to how they're ... prepared.
Indeed, boiling down for a half hour or so would probably help.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've been eating other foods for a very long time, and we've developed methods to handle, and prevent, the parasites. Cook meat, make sure fruits and vegetables are not blighted, ferment dairy, various preservation methods from pickling to canning to smoking. The list of methods is enormous. We haven't been eating insects except in times of famine. We have not yet developed methods of dealing with it.
Who are the “we” you are referring to? “Western civilization”? I lived and worked in Zambia for a while, and there — and possibly in many other countries in Africa — it was common to eat ants, grasshoppers, and caterpillars when they were in season. I never had the chance to taste the caterpillars — and it would probably have been a challenge for me — but the fried grasshoppers and ants were delicious. The article at…
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Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#55I’ve wondered about this for a few years so this is extremely gratifying to read. I’ll have to go in deeper later to really understand the implications of each parasite, but my main takeaway is that my intuition here was way off. I expected insects to pose far fewer risks from parasites to humans. I wouldn’t have taken a chance based on that assumption, and cooking bugs seems like it would eliminate most of these pat…
> both seem to carry plenty of baggage Salads can literally kill you via the listeria they bring.
I’ll pick the salad over the steak any day, though.
Above all I’d love to see better technology and attention for food safety, though. It’s stunning to see how many people suffer from food born illness today — something I’d thought was far more under control up until my mid 30s. It’s better under many circumstances and I’m not going to pretend it’s anything like it has been in the past. However, we could do much, much better than we do now and it would literally save lives.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#56They probably contain toxins that can't be cooked away either. Ask yourself why humans refrained from eating them unless near starvation and death for the recorded history of humanity.
> Ask yourself why humans refrained from eating them
Plenty of humans don't eat plenty of meats and sea animals either. Traditions don't necessarily contain good wisdom.
I think seeing a bug feast on feces and then having it sneak up on your food stashes might trigger an obvious reaction (similar to pigs and the reason why some don't eat them)
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#57Having eating crickets in Mexico in the past, now I'm concerned.
Weren't the crickets prepared? E.g., roasted?
Chapulines are not eaten raw, like most bugs they're fried or toasted in a pan or comal, but the study shows that parasites may survive that.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> both seem to carry plenty of baggage Salads can literally kill you via the listeria they bring.
The majority of foodborne illness and death in the US is due to animal products. [1] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution-image.html#f...
Isn’t it also the case that a lot of these contaminations in produce (like leafy greens) are caused by animal manure being used to fertilize the produce?
Without manure being used the risk is diminished by orders of magnitude.
Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#59Re: Edible insects role in transmission of parasitic diseases to humans (2019)
#60I don’t get why it’s so hard for people to just stop eating animals.
Probably because there's no veggie as tasty as meat with a sprinkle of salt.