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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: 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.