Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow • Hacker News Board

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#61

Post by tehchromic » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 9:22 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #51

tehchromic wrote: post #33

The 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…

Rats, raised in clean conditions and fed properly, would probably make a good food source. People eat rabbits and squirrels, there's really not much difference.

True, but what you consider clean conditions is relative. City streets are dirty, but so is the bottom of the ocean! where sharks vacate and whales rot to bits and all kinds of sediment and detritus gathers: there's your market price lobster's "clean conditions and properly fed". So would you knowingly eat a rat off the city streets? Well, I probably would too in fact, even if the thought truly disgusts me :}

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#62

Post by convivialdingo » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 9:23 PM UTC

Lethe101 wrote: post #44

vamur wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Lewis and Clark ate plenty of dog, though I doubt they ate Huskies. I imagine they ate dog meat because it was generally available and more sanitary.

http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/read/?_xmlsrc=1806-05-0...

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#63

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

axlprose wrote: post #23

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #12

Kind of interesting how many people would rather eat bugs than not eat meat at all.

Not really, considering the nutritional profile of insects. There are some nutrients you can't readily get from plant-based foods, or only in poor amounts, like DHA/EPA, carosine, lysine, etc. Not to mention all the things you'd normally miss out on with traditional meat, because we're not used to eating the bones and innards of large animals here, but that you get from insects cause you'd eat them whole, so you'd ge…

Beans are full of lysine and, for ovo-lacto vegetarians, so are eggs.

(I don't consider dha/epa and carnosine to be essential nutrients.)

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#64

Post by tehchromic » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 9:29 PM UTC

pistle wrote: post #46

I'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 gra…

the tail is like, the whole shrimp :} haha, but I know what you mean. Maybe it's good, maybe it's the kind of baking goth teenagers carry on just to disgust their stiff parents!

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#65

Post by MengerSponge » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 9:37 PM UTC

computerjunkie wrote: post #32

I 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 no…

I'm pretty sure most things are delicious once fried in butter and mixed with vegetables.

Incidentally, I'd love for microlivestock to be more widespread in the US--it could be such an affordable protein source!

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#66

Post by amyjess » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 9:41 PM UTC

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #42

neuronic wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the case of soy-based fakemeat, it's more about texture than taste. The taste isn't that hard to get down; good luck getting it to have the same mouthfeel as a slice of bacon or a nice, juicy steak though.

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#67

Post by esrauch » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

dothething wrote: post #57

towelguy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm looking forward more at Soylent[0] than lab-grown meat. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_%28drink%29

Enjoy! http://www.meghantelpner.com/blog/the-soylent-killer/

You can easily find blogs talking about how anything is terrible. Just offhand, your link recommends multivitamins, but there are many more-credible sources that will tell you that multivitamins are bad for you.

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#68

Post by mattchew » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

robhack wrote: post #60

Am I the only one bothered by the sheer amount of killing this means? You might have to feed poultry 2lb to get 1lb of food, but you kill only one living creature. With insects, how many living creatures are you going to kill to get 1lb ? (even though that would only require 1lb of feeding). Yes I know, they are not conscious at the same level, and are killed in a way so that they don't suffer, but still.

I'm sure you're not the only one, but you're pretty unusual.

Eating meat doesn't bother me, but if I imagine myself attaching more moral value to nonhumans, I would rate insects a lot lower than chickens a lot lower than pigs, and switching to insects being a net gain morally.

Does it bother you to eat plants? Things made with yeast? Do other activities that kill lots of insects bother you?

Not trying to needle you and I hope I am not setting off your scrupulosity, I'm just wondering how far it goes. I am also curious if this is a "thing" in the West now, I know something similar is sometimes practiced in India.

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#69

Post by computerjunkie » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 9:56 PM UTC

MengerSponge wrote: post #65

computerjunkie wrote: post #32

I 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 no…

I'm pretty sure most things are delicious once fried in butter and mixed with vegetables. Incidentally, I'd love for microlivestock to be more widespread in the US--it could be such an affordable protein source!

It will be a interesting perspective as it becomes more common to eat insects in Western countries. The main barrier to break down would be the 'ick/ew' factor, which has been mentioned in this threads comments, that is usually cultural.

But judging from the way some domestic animals are treated by some farms, the ick/ew factor of eating insects becomes less of a barrier.

Re: Edible insects are a novelty today, but they'll be mainstream tomorrow

#70

Post by axlprose » Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 10:00 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #63

axlprose wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, considering the nutritional profile of insects. There are some nutrients you can't readily get from plant-based foods, or only in poor amounts, like DHA/EPA, carosine, lysine, etc. Not to mention all the things you'd normally miss out on with traditional meat, because we're not used to eating the bones and innards of large animals here, but that you get from insects cause you'd eat them whole, so you'd ge…

Beans are full of lysine and, for ovo-lacto vegetarians, so are eggs. (I don't consider dha/epa and carnosine to be essential nutrients.)

> I don't consider dha/epa and carnosine to be essential nutrients

We're at a point where we don't even know what we don't know about nutrition, so it's fair to have "beliefs" like this I suppose. But there is substantial evidence for DHA's impact on brain development if nothing else, including the brain development of children birthed from mothers low in DHA stores. Not much significant evidence suggests equivalent impact from ALA/plant-based fatty acids, nor do they convert predictably in the body to forms the forms that are actually directly useful. I will grant you that EPA is more debatable, but DHA is pretty solid. And while I don't trust speculative 'evolutionary' evidence, it does make sense that human brain development (and thus human development in general) supposedly started to take off once they migrated near the coasts where there was an abundance of seafood to hunt.

Not to mention that plant fats/oils are the largest contributors to the problem of having imbalanced omega-6 to omega-3 ratios to begin with:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000141000000000000000-w....

Either way, "essential nutrients" and nutrition in general aren't things that we can assume as being settled, because much of what we "know" about all that will almost certainly become outdated in a few short generations. In the meantime, I think moderate diversification of nutrients isn't a bad idea.

Edit: I also made no mention of vegetarianism/veganism, I simply referred to plant-based food sources specifically, because many animal-derived products (including eggs as you mentioned), most certainly still have the benefits I was describing. It's not about lifestyle or ideology, it's about finding quality sources of things that promote optimal human functioning.