from the wasp,-medium-rare,-with-a-side-of-ants dept.
The European Food Safety Authority has published its initial risk assessment of using insects as a source of protein for human consumption and animal feed.
It concluded that risks to human and animal health depended on how the insects were reared and processed.
The UN suggests that "edible insects" could provide a sustainable source of nutrition for a growing population.
The findings have been sent to the European Commission, which requested the EFSA risk assessment.
The report produced by a working group convened by the EFSA scientific committee, compiled a report that assessed "potential biological and chemical hazards, as well as allergenicity and environmental hazards, associated with farmed insects used in food and feed taking into account the entire chain, from farming to the final product".
Risk #99: Projectile vomit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:41AM
If we stopped feeding all those cattle/chickens for meat, a huge sum of the previously cow-eaten food will become available for human consumption.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @08:08AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat [wikipedia.org]
No bugs, unless you're into that.
Humanity is eating more meat, not less. Appeal to veganism won't work, only price pressures will.
(Score: 5, Informative) by choose another one on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:04AM
Ever eaten cow food? Most, almost all, is not fit for human consumption, we cannot digest it - cows can because their digestive system is completely different to ours. About all we can do with cow food, other than feed it to cows, is mangle it in factories to make processed food stuff like "high fructose corn syrup" (all "corn" is not the same, field corn is not sweet corn), which as we all know is really good for us...
So we grow something else on the land, except a large proportion of the land is not actually suitable for growing human-edible crops - here in the uk only about 1/3 of farmland is arable, less than 20% in scotland. Most of the rest is grassland (that stuff humans can't eat but cows can), and even if it could grow something else it is mostly inaccessible (hills etc.) to any kind of harvesting machinery. Luckily nature has given us natural harvesting machines that run on grass and make meat. Arguments based on amount of land to produce meat vs veg completely miss the point that it isn't the same ****ing land.
Further, if you just go vegetarian you still need to make (and presumably discard, i.e. kill, more or less humanely) meat to get dairy, eggs and other animal products. You are basically able to survive only because others eat meat for you.
Vegan is more logically consistent and could possibly apply to a whole population - but vegan is _hard_, hard to get all your nutrients, hard to get your complete proteins, hard to get your fat-soluble vitamins etc., and it must be practically impossible if you are allergic to soya. Balancing a vegan diet without factory-made supplements (particularly B12) and non-local foods seems to be impossible, leading me to believe that veganism is not our natural state - it is possible to be a healthy vegan _now_ only because of global food shipments and factories.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:28AM
leading me to believe that veganism is not our natural state
I think that's pretty much a given... binocular vision, sharp front teeth, big brains and a vocal tract for tracking and coordination, spear-chuckin' upper body structure... I don't think that all evolved to hunt wild wheat stalks. And that's just the obvious externalities.
I remember being surprised to learn the easiest way to determine if an archaeological site is neanderthal or us, was to look for fish bones. Neanderthals rarely got protein from fish and among our ancestors its pretty near universal, to be our species primarily means to eat fish. Although "hunting fish" instead of "hunting mammoth" isn't really all that much of a difference.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 13 2015, @01:03PM
In caveman days it would have been impossible to be a vegan. Now it's not hard. How hard it is used to vary quite widely depending on where you lived. Middle of Park Slope, Brooklyn, easy. Deep in the Idaho panhandle, impossible. Now, though, thanks to the Internet and places like CostCo and Sam's Club you can get the foods you need to provide the very few nutrients you automatically get from meat. For B vitamins, Vegemite/Marmite will take care of you, though they are an acquired taste. Chia's good, too, and makes delicious tapioca-like pudding.
I like meat too much to stay a vegan, but there have been long stretches where we tried going vegan and we got on quite well. There was an adjustment period where we had to get used to soy milk in our coffee instead of milk, and that sort of thing, but we felt lighter and cleaner and had more energy.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:37PM
"Veganism" is not our "natural state". We, like many other primates, are omnivores. We have enzymes to process some vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, tubers, chitin (from fungi or insects) and meat. Physicians and nutritionists alike recommend a balanced diet as the most healthy. Vegetables alone are not enough to provide all the vitamins the human body needs (for example vitamin B12), and eating strictly meat also leads to many vitamin deficiencies. Those who argue strictly for one diet over the other are blinded by their personal preference. The fact is that we're made for a bit of everything.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zugedneb on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:41AM
Agree... I have been a vegan for 7 years now, that is, no animal products at all.
I am not "rich", so I can not afford, or rather, will not pay for "varied" cost, so I have to take some general vitamin pills =)
Also there is wheat or soya milk enriched with calcium, so milk is replaced.
There are some good resources on the net, but use some intelligence when digging in it (as always)...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday October 13 2015, @01:32PM
What? That's down-right un-American!
Next you'll say we need to actually eat the grains used to make beer! People will get together to have cereal and salads at tailgate parties -- this is unthinkable.
But I guess with the new marijuana industry, all of those grass fed cows could be used for other purposes... maybe THC infused steaks? Medicinal cows! Yeah... here put this steak in the smoker, maaan you can eat it AND get the munchies from it and get full at the same time!
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday October 13 2015, @10:41PM
The only thing worse than a vegetarian is a vegetarian that tries to force their views on other people.
This is a great first step, as farming insects is an extremely efficient way of producing proteins that the human body needs, and no, forcing everyone else to eat soy (or dairy, which kind of requires feeding cows) is not a reasonable alternative.
Don't get me wrong, vegetarians, like Christians, are nice people, until and unless they start forcing their belief-cock down my throat.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by pipedwho on Wednesday October 14 2015, @12:54AM
Funnily enough, it seems to be the 'die hard meat eaters' that try to force their belief (and their meat) down your throat. I've heard far more: "What! You don't eat meat? You don't know what you're missing!" than "Come on, you should become vegan!". Vegans/vegetarians know how hard it is to keep to a strict diet all the time and they know it requires a pretty decent life/diet adjustment.
Just as I'm happy to eat a balanced omnivore diet and let others eat whatever they want, most vegetarians and vegans that I know are usually happy to go about eating what they want, and letting others do the same. They might not cook you meat when they invite you over, but they won't expect you to cook them some vegetarian cuisine if you invite them over either (they'll offer to bring something along, or they'll eat the non-meat portion of whatever you're making).
There are obviously groups of 'activists' that like to protest against animal killing, etc. And like any picketer, that is annoying. But, there are extremists in every area. Dickheads will be dickheads, regardless of their platform (whether it be religion, diet, or even the type of car you drive).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:47AM
> Risk #99: Projectile vomit.
Ground up into a protein flour, you'd never even know it was a bug.
Besides, you like shrimp and lobster don't you? Those are just underwater bugs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:57AM
It may take a generation or two to switch. People get used to certain foods. Immigrants usually prefer "homeland" foods over the new land's.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @08:58AM
Shrimp and lobster are disgusting, because they're underwater bugs. Also crabs, crayfish, anything with an exoskeleton.
That said, there's likely no inherent health problem to eating insects. It's just one of our western culture's taboo/unclean foods. I would still rather eat tofu or some other plant protein though if real meat were not available.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 13 2015, @12:29PM
FTFY
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @07:08AM
Short term, you would have better market success using them as fish food.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:15AM
Chicken food... free range chickens eat a lot of bugs.
(Score: 5, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday October 13 2015, @07:51AM
I heard about what happened to that old woman. I'm steering clear.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 13 2015, @09:06AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 13 2015, @12:49PM
Uh-huh [usnews.com]. Looks delicious, don't it?
I have lived in Asia and tried scorpions, grasshoppers, and silkworms, but they're disgusting. Doesn't matter how much soy sauce or hot peppper they put on it, it's still nauseous.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 13 2015, @02:35PM
I will try almost anything once, as long as my host is prepared for me to speak, or spit, my mind afterwards. I guess the only relatively local weird dish I've not yet tried would be lutfisk (and surstroming), but those are more a preparation thing than the beast itself. Whale, perhaps?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @03:23PM
You've hit the nail on the head: land based arthropods (i.e., insects) just don't have any meat to them. This is why we don't eat them now. It's like eating a bag of chips which contains only one chip, but you have to eat the whole thing, *bag and all*. The juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Now a big nice crab is another story. (Not blue crabs, though. They taste great, but so little meat that you need to eat something *before* you begin the "crab picking" to fortify yourself so you don't get faint from hunger at a faster rate than you gain energy from eating them.) Lobster is meaty enough, too, even after the waste of the carapace guts is factored in.
But bugs? Hope you like eating a crunchy plastic wrapper that catches in the back of your throat and teeth.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:00PM
Just checking if you're counting the meat inside the carapace as part of the guts, because there's not a whole lot of guts. Westerners seem to rarely bother with it because of the time and effort, preferring just the tail and claws, but if you flush away the goopy guts and take the time to take apart the sections where the legs are attached to, the amount of edible meat (i.e. same consistency as in tail or claws) in the carapace is at least the same amount of the meat as in the claws.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:23PM
Westerners? I was taught how to pick an entire lobster apart from end to end. The only thing you really can't eat is the dead man's meat aka the gill portions. After I'm finished it looks like the lobster went through a crusher. And steamed only please. Broiling a lobster should be a crime.
The only reason people shy away is they weren't taught how to eat one or they are too lazy to pick through the little legs, guts and even tail fins. Tons of good meat in there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:31PM
Not tons. Crumbs, man. That's why almost nobody bothers.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:47PM
Up in the shell there is a hidden stash where the legs come in. Though I will agree, the legs and tail fins are crumbs.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:35PM
I don't know - never eaten them myself, but I've heard pan-fried locusts for example have a pleasant crunch not unlike many of the empty-calorie snacks we so love in the US. And while you dismiss the carapace as the "wrapper", it's actually a nutritious food source in its own right, and we're designed to digest it - our gastric juices contain the specialized enzyme necessary to break down insect chitin into its component sugars, and arthropod shells are rich in protein. It's only our preferences and flimsy teeth that prevent us from eating crab and lobster shell and all (as we actually do with soft-shell species)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:09PM
Lutfisk=Lutefisk? Hahaha you're in for a treat. My half-Norwegian aunt made that for Thanksgiving dinner once. Once. Fish jello. Next to that the lefse sold out. Still, pretty mild on the absolute scale of food, and only a half-step down from haggis. It takes some effort, but you can develop a taste for it. Salmiakki's the same sort of thing, but don't know if they sell that where you are.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:10PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:45PM
I used to live in China and you're right about the silkworms, I'd already eaten scorpions, snake, frog, duck brain, tripe, blood and numerous other stuff and the silkworms made me want to retch. Unlike the other things that generally get easier to eat the more of it you eat, the silkworms were just as disgusting later on as they were to start.
Oooh, and I forgot spider.
IMHO, the larger the bug is the better it tastes as you can more easily remove the parts that are disgusting.
(Score: 3, Funny) by deimtee on Tuesday October 13 2015, @09:22AM
If you think you're not already eating bugs then you you should look up the permitted levels of insects/insect parts in processed foods. FDA [fda.gov] , Cliff notes version [wikipedia.org]
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:56AM
The feed costs about the same as that for chicken. Chicken wins(?).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @02:36PM
> The feed costs about the same as that for chicken. Chicken wins(?).
Don't need antibiotics to grow them in high-density. Much less animal suffering too.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:13PM
Arguably there'd be much *more* animal suffering, due to the amount of insects needed to equal a single chicken. It's only that insects are considered a lower life form that their welfare is considered less important than a chicken's.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:18PM
I usually find myself on your side of this argument, but there are actually many reasons to suspect that total suffering might decrease.
Firstly there's the fact that most "bugs" don't demonstrate anything we can recognize as possible suffering. Some of the higher arthropods do - Lobsters for example will engage in excessive grooming of an amputated limb, but they're an exception rather than the rule. Most just get on with their lives with only mechanically-imposed behavioral changes. Whereas pretty much all mammals, birds, etc will demonstrate prolonged distress after such serious injuries, even when there should be no pain associated with the damage.
Which bring up another point - bugs can't feel pain. At least not via the mechanisms we do. They simply don't have the nerve receptors necessary for experiencing it. Not that that rules it out completely, we're still discovering new functional components in human anatomy on a semi-regular basis, it's easily possible that we've simply overlooked some novel and non-obvious pain-receptor mechanism. But the combination of having no apparent mechanism for experiencing pain, coupled with demonstrating no apparent distress in the face of even massive trauma, does make it easier to lean towards a conclusion that they might not experience suffering at all. They may well be very much closer to being "nothing but bio-chemical machines", lacking both the the biology necessary to experience pain and the self-awareness necessary to experience suffering.
Moreover quite a few species voluntarily choose to live in settings that are near-optimal for industrial farming. Locust swarms, bee and ant hives, etc. And with several of them we understand many of the the bio-chemical/mechanical triggers that govern their behavior, allowing us to optimize their individual and swarm behavior to suite our own ends.
Of course, on the other side of the coin I would swear that my resident house centipedes and spiders can be "trained" over the years to avoid "unpleasant" (to me) behaviors, becoming better co-habitors over the course of their not-inconsiderable lives. (I prefer biological pest control and leave harmless predators unmolested) Cat-surviving behaviors I could blame on simple selective pressures, but how to explain adult spiders avoiding the vicinity of my bed when I only ever shoo them away, except through learned behavior that would seem to require some measure of awareness? And at the risk of anthropomorphizing, when a large presumably many-year-old house centipede emerges from its usual haunts to closely approach me for a minute or two before disappearing back the way it came, it seems very reminiscent of curiosity or possibly even something like friendliness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @02:10PM
So what's the big deal?
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday October 13 2015, @04:30PM
Easier to de-shell.
And some still won't eat shrimp if it's prepared intact, i.e. the head is still attached when served.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday October 14 2015, @02:02AM
Do you eat the shell in your shrimp and lobster or you de-shell your scorpion or grasshopper?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @05:03PM
http://efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4257 [europa.eu]
Looks like they produced some data but few conclusions.
(Score: 1) by snufu on Tuesday October 13 2015, @06:25PM
In my youth I thought vegetarians were nuts (hee). But over time my appetite for meat has gradually diminished while my enjoyment of the full spectrum of fruits and vegetables has only increased.
When I think about the stuff that really stimulates the palate, it is almost exclusively from plants. Meat without plant based spices is almost flavorless. But there is an endless variety of plant cuisine that delights with no meat assistance. Protein requirements aside.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday October 13 2015, @11:45PM
I agree. Though in fairness that "flavorlessness" is largely due to the fact that we primarily eat animals fed a bland monotonous diet and extensively bred for yield over flavor, not unlike those giant flavorless tomatoes you can get at the store. Wild game tends to be far more flavorful, though like any strong flavor it can be an acquired taste. We also tend to massively overcook out food, due in part to the radically unhealthy environment factory-farmed animals live in, which generally leaves the meat with bacteria and parasite concentrations hundreds or even thousands of times higher than in free-range animals, and dangerous to eat without heating it to the point that much of the flavor is lost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2015, @12:36AM
I agree with you about the bland flavor of farm raised meat (aquatic or land based), but I will disagree with you that we overcook meat because farm raised meat is contaminated, while wild meat is pure. Wild meat is frequently full of parasites. It's Nature's wild and thriving ecosystem at work inside the bodies of the game animals that never were given worm medicine or antibiotics. Google "cod worm" if you like fresh fish and shudder.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 14 2015, @03:35PM
A fair point, I didn't mean to imply that wild meat was "pure" - just that factory-farmed meat is radically contaminated.