from the chocolate-covered-grasshoppers dept.
A Los Angeles Times article reports on aspects of the current state of insects as food in the US. Apparently the trend is increasing. The article focuses on a company that supplies mealworms and superworms.
Mealworms and superworms are rich in protein, amino acids and vitamins and minerals like potassium and iron. Plus, they have less fat and cholesterol than beef.
These and other insects are also considered an environmentally friendly source of protein because they can be raised on a fraction of the land and water required for traditional livestock, like cattle.
In case you are wondering:
Their flavor, when toasted, is often described as being nutty and crispy, akin to roasted pecans or fried pork rinds.
Mealworms and superworms are "two of the roughly 1,900 insect species that are good for people to eat, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization." Already about 2 billion people have insects as a staple in their diets (personal observation: a true "paleo-diet" would require them).
What are the environmental benefits?
Compared with cattle, cultivated insects emit far fewer greenhouse gases, require less water, can be grown in a smaller space, can eat foods like vegetable scraps that would otherwise be considered waste, and can grow more protein from less feed, according to the report. For instance, growing mealworms for food requires about one-tenth as much space as raising an equivalent amount of beef protein, the report says.
The benefits may not be as clear when compared with chicken:
A study published in 2015 in the scientific journal PLOS One found that crickets raised on poultry feed required nearly as much food as conventionally raised chickens per unit of protein produced. If crickets aren't able to convert feed into protein more efficiently than chickens, they really aren't that much more sustainable, the researchers concluded.
For those interested, you may want to read the report produced by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:14AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:20AM
Since the worms aren't any more efficient at turning chicken feed into protein than the chickens are, you can feed the chicken feed to the chicken, and I'll eat the chicken. At least that way, I know where the entrails went.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:37AM
It's not only that. Worms or whatever other insect or bug you grind up might have all the nutrients and be generally good for you. There are other factors when it comes to food besides that. If what is good for you was all that mattered we would eat good things all the time ready. There is taste, there is texture, there is background - most people in the west will probably for quite some time feel a bit of revulsion at the thought of eating bugs and that just ain't going to go away with some glossy adverts or celeb endorsement. I think they refer to it as the yuck-factor. There is also feelings and culture of eating that just won't change so easily. I just don't see myself sitting at the dinner table with family and friends yet and all have our worm-steak. It's a long way from becoming common and they, the once that want to peddle bugs as food or food-substitute, are probably going to be in for a massive uphill struggle. I don't see western eating patterns changing to a bug based diet anytime soon no matter how healthy it might be. Also considering that whole chickens are extremely cheap as it is these bugs or worms would have to be incredibly cheap, they would have to practically give it away, for me to even contemplate eating that and I'm still not certain people would want to change to a worm based diet on price alone.
You have things like Quorn, a meat substitute made from fungus, that is supposed to taste and have the texture of meat. It's more expensive then meat, a lot more expensive. I tried it. It was ok. Cooked right I couldn't really taste the difference between that and say ground beef for making some pasta sauce. That doesn't mean I want to eat it or that it will replace real meat. The price was and is to high for me to even contemplate a switch. Also I'm somewhat unsure about possible health rewards / risks with it. That has been around for quite a few years now and it hasn't really gone mainstream. If you can't even peddle fungus protein as a meat replacements, and people are usually okay with mushrooms and fungus, I don't really put much hope in worms or bugs ending up on every plate anytime soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:57AM
When I was kid, I was super picky about my food. I was so picky that even my hamburgers had to be prepared just so.
But now, not so much. I would totally eat this stuff. It doesn't even have to pretend to be food I'm already familiar with. I've eaten so much food from around the world that I no longer have those expectations. I don't think I've even eaten a regular steak in over 10 years. Just make it savory with strong, rich flavors and I'm happy.
Is it too much to hope for the rest of the country to stop being so picky? Probably.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Saturday September 05 2015, @05:23AM
A lot of those things are still delicacies in other countries. What is and isn't edible is partially a matter of toxicity and nutrition, but a lot of it comes down to socialization. It's common in the US to refuse to eat snails, even though we'll eat things that are essentially snails as long as they live in the sea. A scallop, for example, is a mollusk just like a snail is. But, we're raised to consider one delicious and the other disgusting.
I've personally eaten a number of different types of insects and most of them are delicious when prepared properly.
(Score: 1) by dvader on Sunday September 06 2015, @08:52AM
Speaking of expensive foods, a high cost means one or more people along the production line has spent a lot of effort making it. Effort that could have been used for something else, like curing cancer or making even more food. Unless there are other cost-less benefits like less environmental pollution (which often doesn't cost anything), expensive products should be questioned.
(Yes, a high price is often just markup from your grocer but then someone else should be selling it for much less. I have never seen cheap quorn.)
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:33AM
I gotta agree with you - the entrails are the only real "yuck" factor I have. If they could gut insects before I eat them, I'd have no problem - like removing the "vein" from shrimp.
(Score: 5, Funny) by mhajicek on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:39AM
"Chicken good." - Leeloo Dallas Multipass.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 06 2015, @01:02AM
If you read the summary a little more carefully, you'll realise it it said crickets were no more efficient than turning chicken feed into protein than chickens. Nothing about how efficiently worms turn their food into protein.
Other points to note, this is only one study, and we don't know how good the methodology was for this study (it could be flawed), or if the researchers performing it had any biases. Also even if the results are correct, maybe chicken feed isn't the best food for crickets, it may be worth looking at other feed for them, or maybe crickets just aren't a very good choice of insects to choose if we are looking to reduce the environmental impact of our food.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Subsentient on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:53AM
If we stopped feeding cattle and poultry for food, the resulting savings in food consumption would be intense.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:13AM
Cool story bro. Are you one of those asshole posers who claims to be vegetarian to pick up chicks at Whole Foods? Don't you secretly wish you were chowing down on gyros with some skank bitches in a back alley somewhere?
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Saturday September 05 2015, @07:56AM
No, I'm not one of those. I'm a real vegetarian and I have been since I was a teen. I'm, ironically, a 300lb neckbeard, so I suppose that rules out the rest of your theory.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @10:36AM
Only since you were a teen? I've been a real vegetarian for as long as I can remember. When my parents tried to feed me meat, I just refused to eat. I didn't make a choice like you. I was born this way, baby.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @09:11AM
Thanks, because what i need more is people telling what i need to do and how to live my life based on nothing, but their idealogies or fears. Religion much?
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Saturday September 05 2015, @07:51PM
If people started to consider elephants and tigers and exotic things as delicacies, would a market open that would cause the breeding and preservation of such beasts?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:00AM
Say you allowed to have up to three maggots in a pizza.
(Score: 3, Funny) by davester666 on Saturday September 05 2015, @07:53AM
If you find more, you wind up being charged extra for them, because they become a another topping.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:07AM
If you don't already know what a Battery Cage is then DON'T FIND OUT.
Just eat eggs from free-range chickens.
Yes they cost a dollar or two more per dozen.
That dollar or two goes towards the elimination of Battery Cages from the Earth.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday September 05 2015, @06:29AM
If you don't already know what a Battery Cage is then DON'T FIND OUT.
This is such good advice about so many things. If you don't know, then don't find out. Word to the wise. Say no more, say no more! Either that of MDC is once again engaging in the fine art of rhetoric! Yeah, really, don't find out. Did I mention that I explicitly told you to not find out? Get you fingers away from the Google! No good will come of this! Don't do it! . . . . Until, of course, as instructed by reverse psychology (really the only kind MDC has, admittedly) you find out. And then you will pay the dollar more for free range eggs, for the rest of your life, and beyond. It's kind of like "Jupiter Rising", except with MDC instead of Mila Kunis.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:03PM
It's kind of like "Jupiter Rising", except with MDC instead of Mila Kunis.
Not that I don't like her (very good [bad?] wicked witch of the west), but MDC might have added some substance to Jupiter Rising!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Saturday September 05 2015, @11:01PM
Speaking of eggs, I would be okay with doing away with all other forms of meat livestock and eating only eggs for protein (perhaps supplemented with the occasional fish for omega-3).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by albert on Sunday September 06 2015, @02:50AM
Dude, it's a chicken.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday September 06 2015, @11:59AM
Need you be so cruel?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:12AM
consider that one must grow plants to feed the insects. Why not just eat the plants?
Not long ago I lost forty pounds in six months through no other means than adopting a strictly-vegan diet. Taste's great, felt the best I'd felt in years.
However if you become vegan yourself it is of vital importance to eat lots of fungus - not just mushrooms but also tempeh, miso, yeast - yes beer and wine work but you need to drink lots of them :-D - and Athletes Foot. This because Methylcobalamine is not found in animals and is essential in the creation of red blood cells.
(Someone one the nobel a while back by discovering that Methylcobalamine injections effectively treat a particularly cruel form of childhood anemia.)
Vegans who don't eat enough fungus develop all manner of weird little illnesses, stuff like brain damage.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @06:56AM
From what I understand, neither plants nor the human body can produce some essential fats needed by, say, the brain in its development. So to be healthy growing up as a child, you need at least some animal-based foods, and that's why the vegetarian cultures out there usually include some animal-based foods, such as milk or yogurt.
(Score: 1) by xorsyst on Monday September 07 2015, @09:06AM
From what I understand, neither plants nor the human body can produce some essential fats needed by, say, the brain in its development
Then you understand wrong. I mean, just factually wrong. The only thing a vegan diet is likely to lack is B12, which is easily fixed by supplement, although you can go several years without one.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by quacking duck on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:15PM
You will need to clarify the eating of Athletes Foot. That is a fungal *infection* and if there's some food by that name then its marketers need to be shot, because the first few pages of search results are all about how to get rid of it.
(Score: 2) by VortexCortex on Saturday September 05 2015, @11:58PM
You will need to clarify the eating of Athletes Foot.
You may know it as a different name, Toe FLOSS (Free (Libre) Open Source Snacks). [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday September 06 2015, @12:02PM
Leprosy: it's what's for breakfast.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:16AM
Keep breeding fuckers and after you're reduced to eating bugs they'll suggest it would be a lot better for the environment to start eating each other. There is no ecological problem that is made BETTER by increasing the human population. Most ecological problems are eliminated with smaller human populations. It's pretty clear where the solution is. Every time you see someone gloat over their 3+ brats, you know who to blame for turning this world to shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:34AM
If you eat chicken, beef, or pork and not bugs, you are not being efficient and are thus helping to turn this world to shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @08:47AM
Because if you eat soy, salad and Himalayan salt it doesn't turn to shit? You just sweat the excrements out?
(Score: 1) by blackhawk on Saturday September 05 2015, @03:33PM
It's time to combine two good old ideas to save our future. At the age of 30, everyone should go to Carousel and after a funky light show and some pyrotechnics be sent to Resyk for conversion into Soylent Green. Come to think of it...there was a robot in Logan's Run who'd made a fine start on that path for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 05 2015, @08:29PM
Every time you see someone gloat over their 3+ brats, you know who to blame for turning this world to shit.
Yeah that's why it's mostly not gay couples who are/would be responsible for screwing up the world. It's the fault of straight people (or straight people who forced gay people to pretend to be straight and have children).
Well of course in the past when humans were few in number, too many gay couples might have been a problem, but nowadays they're actually helpful in the long run.
More so the slashdot/soylent basement virgins ;).
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday September 14 2015, @08:18AM
I understand that each inter-continental flight consumes as much as basement dweller consumes over one year. And someone who takes inter-continental flights and has one or more children will consume unlimited resources compared to a basement dweller due to all of the resources consumed by descendants.
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Interesting) by captain normal on Saturday September 05 2015, @04:52AM
Lobsters and Crayfish are bugs. Crabs are Arachnids like spiders and scorpions. Abalone are big ocean snails. Not only that, you likely eat a small amount of many different bugs that are present in your flour, cornmeal and other grains
I've been in regions where insects are a standard part of the diet. I've eaten fried grasshopper in Mexico as well as chocolate coated ants. In India I enjoyed curried termites. In Thailand I tried scorpion roasted on a stick (salty and heavily spiced like most of their food). We've all seen on the tube people eat grubs and giant cockroaches which are a staple in some countries. The revulsion to eating insects is simply a cultural bias. I could cook up some bugs in a pasta sauce, or stew, or curry or mix bug bits in with a hamburger and you'd like it...at least till I told you what was in it.
I agree with eof on his observation about the "paleo-diet". I have more than once come across someone who claimed to be eating a Paleolithic diet saying they only ate meat (meaning beef, pork, venison or poultry) and some greens and nuts. I usually just say, "Oh, you eat bugs and worms?" When I get the puzzled look, I point out that the domestic animals we use for meat did not exist in the Paleolithic era, at least not as we know them today. And that our ancestors likely depended on protein sources that were easier to catch and eat than a whooly mammoth or a large buffalo.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 4, Informative) by Dunbal on Saturday September 05 2015, @11:45AM
Crustaceans != insects. Sorry but just because they share an exoskeleton does not make them insects. CRABS ARE NOT ARACHNIDS in much the same way as YOU ARE NOT A FISH, even though both you and the fish belong to the Chordata phylum.
(Score: 2) by Balderdash on Saturday September 05 2015, @05:08PM
Paleo is a metaphor.
I browse at -1. Free and open discourse requires consideration and review of all attempts at participation.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday September 05 2015, @10:05AM
Eating insects has taken its place as one of the stories that are endlessly recycled on slow news days.
Some topics on this list include:
- eating insects
- eliminating the penny
- cursive writing
- the shroud of Turin
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Tuesday September 08 2015, @12:36PM
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 05 2015, @11:28AM
These entomophagy articles have been appearing a lot in the past 3 years and I cannot figure out why. What sort of economic interest is pushing the consumption of worms & grubs in the First World? Who could possibly have a business interest in that? Or is it simply the rich and powerful want to see how much they can mess with the proles by betting they can convince them to eat grasshoppers instead of steak?
I have eaten grasshoppers and scorpions and silk worms and other insects, but it's just not worth the trouble. They don't taste good. Even with the copious spices people cook them in, they don't taste good. Scorpions taste like pork rinds, and not in a good way, grasshoppers taste bitter, and silk worms taste like a nastier version of brussel sprouts.
If you're that desperate for protein from a non-beef, pig, or chicken source, tofu is far preferable to eating bugs.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday September 05 2015, @11:28AM
Edible Insects: How would you like your meal(worms)?
Same as I like my mammals. Mushed up being all recognition.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by albert on Sunday September 06 2015, @02:55AM
Suggestion: have a robot that rips the thighs off of grasshoppers, then pushes out the meat with a blunt metal probe.
Get me the meat like that, as nice clean entrail-free burger, and I'll gladly eat it.