8 ms·

Why Aren’t We Eating More Insects?

27 points by JoshMnem 8y ago

vbuwivbiu 8y ago
because the idea is inherently revolting
- jay-anderson 8y ago
  There are humans that eat insects. I don't think there's something about eating insects we automatically find unappealing. I believe we've been taught that. Another idea is we don't like seeing the face of what we're eating. Most meat is processed to the point where we can't see where it comes from. For fun my wife made some cookies including cricket powder. We told people and did not hide that fact from them. Most wanted to try it for the novelty of it and didn't find the idea disgusting.
  - iamdave 8y ago
    Another idea is we don't like seeing the face of what we're eating. Most meat is processed to the point where we can't see where it comes from. Ahh laws and sausages ;)
  - gnulinux 8y ago
    Primate brain has special parts specifically wired to visually process snakes [1]. It is also thought that it has specific parts that process the shape of spider, and maybe other insects [2]. This is one explanation why primates have such a strangely large brain. Processing image requires a lot of computational power, being arboreal, primates need to distinguish snakes and spiders to safely crawl in the forest. This is not to say, primates wouldn't eat snakes or spiders. I don't know if other primates eat them (they might be?) but humans do eat both [3] [4]. [1] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/10/did-snakes-help-build-primate-brain http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/10/did-snakes-help-build... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982214004539 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake#Consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake#Consumption
- gnulinux 8y ago
  This is very condescending. There are a lot of cultures that eat insects. It may be revolting for you -- it is revolting for me -- but calling it "inherently revolting" is not appropriate. Please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy. From the article: > The total number of ethnic groups recorded to practice entomophagy is around 3,000.[2] What makes our culture closer to "inherent" human nature than those 3000 cultures?
  - vbuwivbiu 8y ago
    I said nothing about other cultures - I was only speaking for myself
- nkrisc 8y ago
  That's what you've been conditioned to believe.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  That was my first thought too. I am Danish and I eat leverpostej daily. It is minced pork liver, minced pork fat and a few other things, mixed baked in the oven. I am sure others would say it is revolting, but I love the taste. I also had squid. Tasted kinda rubbery, but people might say it was revolting. I have had (and enjoyed) pig heart, it is super time consuming to make, but so, so delicious. I have had pig cheeks as well. Also tasty. My point with this isn't to gross anybody out, but that what we find gross is a cultural thing, not an objective thing, so there is no a priory reason we should find insects especially gross. And yes, I have had meal-worms. Tasted like paper, but the nutritional ratios are a dream: 53% protein, 20ish percent fat, almost no carbs.
  - gnulinux 8y ago
    I think pork is a very good example. In Europe, you can see millions of Jewish people or Muslims that consider pork "unclean" and don't eat them; just like we consider rats "unclean" and don't eat them but eat pork. It really doesn't make sense to think that there is single "inherent" way how people think about food.
- noobermin 8y ago
  To be honest, this is the real reason, and I guess the article is trying to push back against the cultural aversion to insect meat in the US specifically. It really isn't that hard to explain. It's the same reason we don't eat rats. They are considered "unclean".
  - gnulinux 8y ago
    Muslims and Jewish people don't eat pork. If you ask a religious Muslim or Jew they'll tell you "they don't eat it because God forbid them to". But if you go to more secular cultures (Europen/American Jewish communities, Turkey, Azerbaijan etc...) they'll rationalize it by saying "pig is not a clean animal, that's why we don't eat it". Human culture comes in all sorts of shapes and beliefs. The moment you try to put it into cups, you'll realize it's not as flexible as you thought. There are thousands of cultures that eat insect, or pig; and as many cultures that consider them unclean.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  No, you feel inherently revolted. It's just not a big deal to other people. Understanding this won't undermine your preferences in any meaningful way but it will make the rest of the world much easier to deal with.
blhack 8y ago
Because nobody in the west has figured out a good way of preparing them yet. Lobster (essentially a giant cockroach that lives in the water) was once considered revolting too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobster#As_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobster#As_food It's because nobody had figured out how to prepare it yet.
- daenz 8y ago
  I'd be interested to see what a Michelin star chef could do with insects.
  - peppage 8y ago
    Noma used ants, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/worlds-best-restaurant-comes-to-town-and-its-serving-ants-7995007.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news...
coldtea 8y ago
Because we don't want to. We don't we eat less meat? (not a vegan, just don't particular care for the "tons of meat every day" lifestyle that takes tons of resources).
zdragnar 8y ago
From the article: 1- the European ice age eliminated almost all of the edible insects in the continent, meaning it's never been a good idea there 2- they live in and on rot and decay, and are otherwise unsanitary We like meat from animals because it can be butchered without too much contamination. We dislike non-meaty textures- heck, I won't eat chicken feet not only because of the texture, but because what do you think chickens walk around all day in? Sure, there's limited exceptions- pork cracklins and tripe, though most westerners also refuse to eat those as well. The comparison to crustaceans is unfair, since most people don't eat the shells of lobsters or crabs, only the fleshy bits. Ultimately, barring some seafood and small game, we're conditioned to not eat the entire animal at once, only the parts that appeal to us. Meat on its own, guts and other soft bits in sausage, bones for broth. Eating insects invariably means that what you eat looks like what it is- an animal. The article goes on to sing the praises of eating insects- good protein, environmentally friendly, cheap, so on and so forth. That sounds nice, but it doesn't change the appeal of eating an animal whole, or thinking about that same animal living its entire life among a pile of rotten food and poop.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  It isn't just preference. There are biological reasons why we avoid insects and small invertebrates generally. There are many parasites that use such things as hosts for part of their life cycle. Not eating insects shields us from these diseases. Take angiostrongylus cantonensis, a tiny worm. It causes eosinophilic meningitis, which is lethal. It is a very rare parasite in the west. Interestingly, when an infection does occur, it is always a male child. Never girls. Never men or woman. Always male kids and the rare teenager. Why? Who else eats slugs?
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    Geez, that sounds very nasty. Worms 'migrating' around in your brain and spine. Clinical Aspects of Eosinophilic Meningitis and Meningoencephalitis caused by Angiostrongylus cantonensis, the Rat Lungworm https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689484/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689484/
  - 8y ago
jmaa 8y ago
I haven't read the article, but one reason may be the unappetizing portrail. The photographs in this article are bleak and chaotic, in sharp contrast to the colorful and organized way food is depicted nowadays. Unrelated, I've encountered energy bars with an insect: Standard energy bars, but extra expensive and with minuscule amounts of insect. Selling cheap eco-friendly insects as an expensive "cool" gimmick is a cruel sort of irony.
y-c-o-m-b 8y ago
A strong imagination does it for me. I used to love eating lamb, but in my teens my father took me to a friends house where I partook in slaughtering a lamb and later eating it. Now I find eating lamb utterly disgusting. If I even smell lamb it reminds me of how the animal wailed around as it was dying and the smell of its intestines and skin as we butchered it. Same idea with insects - when I picture someone eating insects, I get reminded of the smells, the sounds, and worst of all where they've been. Bees?! Ever seen a portable toilet in the summer when the doors are left cracked open and insects get into? Bees on human feces. No thanks.
- daenz 8y ago
  Props to you for experiencing how your food is made. Some people turn away from meat after that (like you did), some people are fine with it. Regardless of where you land, we shouldn't psychologically shield ourselves from the processes involved in getting food to the table. It's the one thing that sticks with me from the PETA and PETA-like movements: you should know how your food is created. If it makes you more empathetic, fine, and if it doesn't, also fine. We are omnivores after all.
  - mLuby 8y ago
    Why is denying ourselves a psychological shield a good idea?
    - opportune 8y ago
      Typically because it helps you make decisions you morally disagree with by pretending the bad parts don’t exist. You can’t decide whether you are morally ok with how a product is produced without seeing how it’s produced: this applies to more than just food, e.g. sweatshops
    - yesenadam 8y ago
      It's not easy to answer this macabre question. To many people, it's more important not to slaughter animals like that, than that people feel ok about the ugly reality. To people who think human lives aren't the only ones that have some value, this question is grotesque. To me, at least - 'Why is feeling bad about needlessly slaughtering lambs a good idea?'.. I guess there's a utilitarian argument for taking a pill so we'd never feel bad about anything, if we could, though I'm not sure if we'd still be recognizably human. Well, maybe psychopaths are like that.
User23 8y ago
This reads like a rhetorical question, but I’ll take a swing at it anyhow: because it’s gross. Edit: Sorry entomophages didn’t mean to offend.
- pennaMan 8y ago
  For me insects are a symbol of foul and infestation. Those plates look like they were taken over by what is on them. Can this strong repulsion be a cultural thing, like so many prejudices are?
  - lookACamel 8y ago
    You said it yourself. A SYMBOL of foul and infestation. Where do we get most of our symbols from? Of course it's a cultural thing.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Probably because you would need to harvest immense amounts for them to work as a staple food source, and their pretty bland flavor, at least of the various sorts I've tried, is not really something likely to make them a luxury food source, though I'd have said the same thing about caviar. With modern farming technology the mass cultivation may be possible, but for times past compare this to something like a single decent sized whitetail deer that can provide upwards of 100 pounds of edible meat. One deer = months of food. One insect = minutes/seconds of food.
checkyoursudo 8y ago
I am not opposed to people eating insects. However, as I am someone who already does not eat meat, is there a compelling reason for me to start eating insects? Would adding insects to my diet be, for example, more eco-friendly/sustainable than my plant-based diet? I don't think I have a diversification need that is not currently satisfied, either nutritionally or for enjoyment of variety.
barbegal 8y ago
Mainly because insects are expensive. Sure, they need less food than conventional livestock but they are very labour-intensive. You typically need thousands of insects to get the same amount of protein as a chicken. You can raise several chickens per square meter but you can't raise the equivalent number of insects in that space which means you either need more real estate (expensive) or typically more labour with insects in many shelves or boxes stacked up. And each of these shelves or boxes requires cleaning, feeding, watering, temperature control... Without a huge revolution in technology to automate all of these tasks you have to employ a small army of human workers which is only really viable in lower wage countries. You simply can't produce insects suitable for human consumption at less than $20/kg whereas chickens can sell for just a few dollars per kg. And when the consumer is given the choice between delicious, cheap, tried and tested vs unknown, expensive they will always choose chicken.
- bartread 8y ago
  > And when the consumer is given the choice between delicious, cheap, tried and tested vs unknown, expensive they will always choose chicken. Unless they're hipsters. How else does one explain the existence, and outrageous price, of cold brew coffee as compared to its unfailingly disappointing flavour?
  - ClassyJacket 8y ago
    Has it genuinely not occurred to you that some people might like b different things to you?
    - bartread 8y ago
      Has it genuinely not occurred to you that I was being a little tongue in cheek? And the point stands: there will always be people who pay a premium for things that others find unappealing.
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  Are you account for the aerable land consumed by the chicken feed and the protein input (fish meal) vs the equivalent requirement for the insects?
moosey 8y ago
This is a cultural/marketing issue, although at this point I'm not sure how separated those are. Also, when I call it an issue, I mean it seriously. The ecological impact of insect production is so much lower than other meats. Non-scientific responses of 'gross/revolting/disgusting' are perfect examples of negative cultural responses to insects as food, rather than scientific ones.
jliptzin 8y ago
Because we find them disgusting and there are many cheap alternative foods that we don’t find disgusting. Of course it’s probably irrational, but that’s the way it is.
cageface 8y ago
Why not just switch to plant-based sources of protein instead? The idea that we have to eat animals to be healthy isn't supported by modern science.
sebringj 8y ago
Didn't evolution across the land-bridges groom us to be different at the core in some areas given the amount of time passing? Why do I immediately find certain things super gross? It feels like its within me rather than a learned behavior. Possibly these feelings are from my ancestry passing them on? One of the reasons I say this is because I tried korean "mediche", don't know actual spelling but its very tiny dried fish with their eyes still on. It sounds gross but is very tasty and strangely I was never grossed out by this as they do look like tiny fish. The same goes for sardines. Why fish with eyes on doesn't gross me out but the sight of larvae makes me want to gag?
- elboru 8y ago
  I'll go with "learned behavior", although my argument is 100% anecdotical, my dad grew up in a rural are in a tough period of time when food was not guaranteed, he learned to eat everything from an animal and he learned not to waste anything. Then he moved to the city (before I was born), where food is no longer a privilege, but still after several decades he still enjoys a lot of animal parts that I (a common city boy) wouldn't eat unless my life depended on it.
  - sebringj 8y ago
    I think there are some things totally like that, but I did notice my young kids seeing a bug and being scared right away. Or funny thing, any cat will do this, put a cucumber next to them without them noticing, and they jump like 3 feet in the air when they see it but its so fast it seems they just react like when you touch a hot metal so its instant. I saw this on Youtube about the cats and tried it with 2 of mine. Its so funny to watch them fly. Anyway, meaning they have an inherent fear of snakes baked into their DNA seems like. We are all mammals and we most likely have some similar things like that. One thing Elon Musk said that made me rethink some things. In his NeuralLink company, he said they came to the conclusion that our neural cortex is "hosted" by our limbic system in his quest to eventually have our neural cortex host AI itself. What that means is our limbic system is driving the motivation of our neocortex to do complicated things to appease it. So in other words, our underlying needs are still very rudimentary in that sense shared with other mammals and even reptiles despite our neocortex reasoning that we are more than that.
swframe2 8y ago
Maybe we should first feed insects to the animals/plants we prefer to eat.
salgernon 8y ago
I wonder if an insect based food economy scales. A few years ago, several of my friends were getting into generating biodiesel - they were so excited to be able to go to restarauntd and try to buy up their grease. But it turns out that once a critical mass of consumers (nowhere near the local population) started doing this, it was no longer viable to “make your own” economically. If let’s Say a cricket contains 10kC, and you need 200 a day, how do you scale that to city size populations? I suspect the answer will be mushrooms or yeast, ultimately.
_rpd 8y ago
To avoid a whole new class of zoonotic diseases?
acconrad 8y ago
At this point (with cricket powders, et al) I think a big reason is because it's so dang expensive. If crickets are touted as this miracle protein that are easy to farm, low impact on the environment, and are still considered to be undesirable, then why are these companies charging $35/lb for their protein powder when you can get whey or pea powder for $6-8/lb?
microcolonel 8y ago
Because people do not generally find them as appetizing as vegetables, mammal and poultry flesh, marrow, or offal. The consumption of insects tends to involve dealing with exoskeletons, direct associations with spoilage (maggots), fiddly and tedious carving; most tend to have a dry texture, and very little appetizing saturated fat.
emmanuel_1234 8y ago
The idea that only in "the West" are insect not consumed is misleading. I've been living in "the East" for a decade now, and had to pull some connections to get crickets in Thailand, or water cockroaches in China. Those are consumed, but not staples (just like French people don't feed on a snails and frog diet).
- BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
  > just like French people don't feed on a snails and frog diet People might not eat them every day, certainly not at pork and bread levels, but frozen escargot and cuisses de grenouille are easily found in any grocery store in France that's large enough to have a freezer section.
lookACamel 8y ago
How to write about eating insects: Muse about why Europeans don't eat insects. Claim that eating insects is a big thing in Asia, Africa, and various indigenous cultures. Mention seafood. Talk about some new insect farming and processing ventures. Point out the supposed eco-friendly advantage. Point out that they are rich in protein. Point out that they're cheap to raise. Make a quip about how we're already eating insects because tiny minuscule bits end up in processed foods.

27 points by JoshMnem 8y ago

vbuwivbiu 8y ago

because the idea is inherently revolting

jay-anderson 8y ago
There are humans that eat insects. I don't think there's something about eating insects we automatically find unappealing. I believe we've been taught that. Another idea is we don't like seeing the face of what we're eating. Most meat is processed to the point where we can't see where it comes from. For fun my wife made some cookies including cricket powder. We told people and did not hide that fact from them. Most wanted to try it for the novelty of it and didn't find the idea disgusting.
- iamdave 8y ago
  Another idea is we don't like seeing the face of what we're eating. Most meat is processed to the point where we can't see where it comes from. Ahh laws and sausages ;)
- gnulinux 8y ago
  Primate brain has special parts specifically wired to visually process snakes [1]. It is also thought that it has specific parts that process the shape of spider, and maybe other insects [2]. This is one explanation why primates have such a strangely large brain. Processing image requires a lot of computational power, being arboreal, primates need to distinguish snakes and spiders to safely crawl in the forest. This is not to say, primates wouldn't eat snakes or spiders. I don't know if other primates eat them (they might be?) but humans do eat both [3] [4]. [1] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/10/did-snakes-help-build-primate-brain http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/10/did-snakes-help-build... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982214004539 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake#Consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake#Consumption
gnulinux 8y ago
This is very condescending. There are a lot of cultures that eat insects. It may be revolting for you -- it is revolting for me -- but calling it "inherently revolting" is not appropriate. Please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy. From the article: > The total number of ethnic groups recorded to practice entomophagy is around 3,000.[2] What makes our culture closer to "inherent" human nature than those 3000 cultures?
- vbuwivbiu 8y ago
  I said nothing about other cultures - I was only speaking for myself
nkrisc 8y ago
That's what you've been conditioned to believe.
tomjen3 8y ago
That was my first thought too. I am Danish and I eat leverpostej daily. It is minced pork liver, minced pork fat and a few other things, mixed baked in the oven. I am sure others would say it is revolting, but I love the taste. I also had squid. Tasted kinda rubbery, but people might say it was revolting. I have had (and enjoyed) pig heart, it is super time consuming to make, but so, so delicious. I have had pig cheeks as well. Also tasty. My point with this isn't to gross anybody out, but that what we find gross is a cultural thing, not an objective thing, so there is no a priory reason we should find insects especially gross. And yes, I have had meal-worms. Tasted like paper, but the nutritional ratios are a dream: 53% protein, 20ish percent fat, almost no carbs.
- gnulinux 8y ago
  I think pork is a very good example. In Europe, you can see millions of Jewish people or Muslims that consider pork "unclean" and don't eat them; just like we consider rats "unclean" and don't eat them but eat pork. It really doesn't make sense to think that there is single "inherent" way how people think about food.
noobermin 8y ago
To be honest, this is the real reason, and I guess the article is trying to push back against the cultural aversion to insect meat in the US specifically. It really isn't that hard to explain. It's the same reason we don't eat rats. They are considered "unclean".
- gnulinux 8y ago
  Muslims and Jewish people don't eat pork. If you ask a religious Muslim or Jew they'll tell you "they don't eat it because God forbid them to". But if you go to more secular cultures (Europen/American Jewish communities, Turkey, Azerbaijan etc...) they'll rationalize it by saying "pig is not a clean animal, that's why we don't eat it". Human culture comes in all sorts of shapes and beliefs. The moment you try to put it into cups, you'll realize it's not as flexible as you thought. There are thousands of cultures that eat insect, or pig; and as many cultures that consider them unclean.
anigbrowl 8y ago
No, you feel inherently revolted. It's just not a big deal to other people. Understanding this won't undermine your preferences in any meaningful way but it will make the rest of the world much easier to deal with.

blhack 8y ago

Because nobody in the west has figured out a good way of preparing them yet. Lobster (essentially a giant cockroach that lives in the water) was once considered revolting too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobster#As_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobster#As_food It's because nobody had figured out how to prepare it yet.

daenz 8y ago
I'd be interested to see what a Michelin star chef could do with insects.
- peppage 8y ago
  Noma used ants, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/worlds-best-restaurant-comes-to-town-and-its-serving-ants-7995007.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news...

coldtea 8y ago

Because we don't want to. We don't we eat less meat? (not a vegan, just don't particular care for the "tons of meat every day" lifestyle that takes tons of resources).

zdragnar 8y ago

From the article: 1- the European ice age eliminated almost all of the edible insects in the continent, meaning it's never been a good idea there 2- they live in and on rot and decay, and are otherwise unsanitary We like meat from animals because it can be butchered without too much contamination. We dislike non-meaty textures- heck, I won't eat chicken feet not only because of the texture, but because what do you think chickens walk around all day in? Sure, there's limited exceptions- pork cracklins and tripe, though most westerners also refuse to eat those as well. The comparison to crustaceans is unfair, since most people don't eat the shells of lobsters or crabs, only the fleshy bits. Ultimately, barring some seafood and small game, we're conditioned to not eat the entire animal at once, only the parts that appeal to us. Meat on its own, guts and other soft bits in sausage, bones for broth. Eating insects invariably means that what you eat looks like what it is- an animal. The article goes on to sing the praises of eating insects- good protein, environmentally friendly, cheap, so on and so forth. That sounds nice, but it doesn't change the appeal of eating an animal whole, or thinking about that same animal living its entire life among a pile of rotten food and poop.

sandworm101 8y ago
It isn't just preference. There are biological reasons why we avoid insects and small invertebrates generally. There are many parasites that use such things as hosts for part of their life cycle. Not eating insects shields us from these diseases. Take angiostrongylus cantonensis, a tiny worm. It causes eosinophilic meningitis, which is lethal. It is a very rare parasite in the west. Interestingly, when an infection does occur, it is always a male child. Never girls. Never men or woman. Always male kids and the rare teenager. Why? Who else eats slugs?
- yesenadam 8y ago
  Geez, that sounds very nasty. Worms 'migrating' around in your brain and spine. Clinical Aspects of Eosinophilic Meningitis and Meningoencephalitis caused by Angiostrongylus cantonensis, the Rat Lungworm https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689484/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689484/
- 8y ago

jmaa 8y ago

I haven't read the article, but one reason may be the unappetizing portrail. The photographs in this article are bleak and chaotic, in sharp contrast to the colorful and organized way food is depicted nowadays. Unrelated, I've encountered energy bars with an insect: Standard energy bars, but extra expensive and with minuscule amounts of insect. Selling cheap eco-friendly insects as an expensive "cool" gimmick is a cruel sort of irony.

y-c-o-m-b 8y ago

A strong imagination does it for me. I used to love eating lamb, but in my teens my father took me to a friends house where I partook in slaughtering a lamb and later eating it. Now I find eating lamb utterly disgusting. If I even smell lamb it reminds me of how the animal wailed around as it was dying and the smell of its intestines and skin as we butchered it. Same idea with insects - when I picture someone eating insects, I get reminded of the smells, the sounds, and worst of all where they've been. Bees?! Ever seen a portable toilet in the summer when the doors are left cracked open and insects get into? Bees on human feces. No thanks.

daenz 8y ago
Props to you for experiencing how your food is made. Some people turn away from meat after that (like you did), some people are fine with it. Regardless of where you land, we shouldn't psychologically shield ourselves from the processes involved in getting food to the table. It's the one thing that sticks with me from the PETA and PETA-like movements: you should know how your food is created. If it makes you more empathetic, fine, and if it doesn't, also fine. We are omnivores after all.
- mLuby 8y ago
  Why is denying ourselves a psychological shield a good idea?
  - opportune 8y ago
    Typically because it helps you make decisions you morally disagree with by pretending the bad parts don’t exist. You can’t decide whether you are morally ok with how a product is produced without seeing how it’s produced: this applies to more than just food, e.g. sweatshops
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    It's not easy to answer this macabre question. To many people, it's more important not to slaughter animals like that, than that people feel ok about the ugly reality. To people who think human lives aren't the only ones that have some value, this question is grotesque. To me, at least - 'Why is feeling bad about needlessly slaughtering lambs a good idea?'.. I guess there's a utilitarian argument for taking a pill so we'd never feel bad about anything, if we could, though I'm not sure if we'd still be recognizably human. Well, maybe psychopaths are like that.

User23 8y ago

This reads like a rhetorical question, but I’ll take a swing at it anyhow: because it’s gross. Edit: Sorry entomophages didn’t mean to offend.

pennaMan 8y ago
For me insects are a symbol of foul and infestation. Those plates look like they were taken over by what is on them. Can this strong repulsion be a cultural thing, like so many prejudices are?
- lookACamel 8y ago
  You said it yourself. A SYMBOL of foul and infestation. Where do we get most of our symbols from? Of course it's a cultural thing.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

Probably because you would need to harvest immense amounts for them to work as a staple food source, and their pretty bland flavor, at least of the various sorts I've tried, is not really something likely to make them a luxury food source, though I'd have said the same thing about caviar. With modern farming technology the mass cultivation may be possible, but for times past compare this to something like a single decent sized whitetail deer that can provide upwards of 100 pounds of edible meat. One deer = months of food. One insect = minutes/seconds of food.

checkyoursudo 8y ago

I am not opposed to people eating insects. However, as I am someone who already does not eat meat, is there a compelling reason for me to start eating insects? Would adding insects to my diet be, for example, more eco-friendly/sustainable than my plant-based diet? I don't think I have a diversification need that is not currently satisfied, either nutritionally or for enjoyment of variety.

barbegal 8y ago

Mainly because insects are expensive. Sure, they need less food than conventional livestock but they are very labour-intensive. You typically need thousands of insects to get the same amount of protein as a chicken. You can raise several chickens per square meter but you can't raise the equivalent number of insects in that space which means you either need more real estate (expensive) or typically more labour with insects in many shelves or boxes stacked up. And each of these shelves or boxes requires cleaning, feeding, watering, temperature control... Without a huge revolution in technology to automate all of these tasks you have to employ a small army of human workers which is only really viable in lower wage countries. You simply can't produce insects suitable for human consumption at less than $20/kg whereas chickens can sell for just a few dollars per kg. And when the consumer is given the choice between delicious, cheap, tried and tested vs unknown, expensive they will always choose chicken.

bartread 8y ago
> And when the consumer is given the choice between delicious, cheap, tried and tested vs unknown, expensive they will always choose chicken. Unless they're hipsters. How else does one explain the existence, and outrageous price, of cold brew coffee as compared to its unfailingly disappointing flavour?
- ClassyJacket 8y ago
  Has it genuinely not occurred to you that some people might like b different things to you?
  - bartread 8y ago
    Has it genuinely not occurred to you that I was being a little tongue in cheek? And the point stands: there will always be people who pay a premium for things that others find unappealing.
throwaway5752 8y ago
Are you account for the aerable land consumed by the chicken feed and the protein input (fish meal) vs the equivalent requirement for the insects?

moosey 8y ago

This is a cultural/marketing issue, although at this point I'm not sure how separated those are. Also, when I call it an issue, I mean it seriously. The ecological impact of insect production is so much lower than other meats. Non-scientific responses of 'gross/revolting/disgusting' are perfect examples of negative cultural responses to insects as food, rather than scientific ones.

jliptzin 8y ago

Because we find them disgusting and there are many cheap alternative foods that we don’t find disgusting. Of course it’s probably irrational, but that’s the way it is.

cageface 8y ago

Why not just switch to plant-based sources of protein instead? The idea that we have to eat animals to be healthy isn't supported by modern science.

sebringj 8y ago

Didn't evolution across the land-bridges groom us to be different at the core in some areas given the amount of time passing? Why do I immediately find certain things super gross? It feels like its within me rather than a learned behavior. Possibly these feelings are from my ancestry passing them on? One of the reasons I say this is because I tried korean "mediche", don't know actual spelling but its very tiny dried fish with their eyes still on. It sounds gross but is very tasty and strangely I was never grossed out by this as they do look like tiny fish. The same goes for sardines. Why fish with eyes on doesn't gross me out but the sight of larvae makes me want to gag?

elboru 8y ago
I'll go with "learned behavior", although my argument is 100% anecdotical, my dad grew up in a rural are in a tough period of time when food was not guaranteed, he learned to eat everything from an animal and he learned not to waste anything. Then he moved to the city (before I was born), where food is no longer a privilege, but still after several decades he still enjoys a lot of animal parts that I (a common city boy) wouldn't eat unless my life depended on it.
- sebringj 8y ago
  I think there are some things totally like that, but I did notice my young kids seeing a bug and being scared right away. Or funny thing, any cat will do this, put a cucumber next to them without them noticing, and they jump like 3 feet in the air when they see it but its so fast it seems they just react like when you touch a hot metal so its instant. I saw this on Youtube about the cats and tried it with 2 of mine. Its so funny to watch them fly. Anyway, meaning they have an inherent fear of snakes baked into their DNA seems like. We are all mammals and we most likely have some similar things like that. One thing Elon Musk said that made me rethink some things. In his NeuralLink company, he said they came to the conclusion that our neural cortex is "hosted" by our limbic system in his quest to eventually have our neural cortex host AI itself. What that means is our limbic system is driving the motivation of our neocortex to do complicated things to appease it. So in other words, our underlying needs are still very rudimentary in that sense shared with other mammals and even reptiles despite our neocortex reasoning that we are more than that.

swframe2 8y ago

Maybe we should first feed insects to the animals/plants we prefer to eat.

salgernon 8y ago

I wonder if an insect based food economy scales. A few years ago, several of my friends were getting into generating biodiesel - they were so excited to be able to go to restarauntd and try to buy up their grease. But it turns out that once a critical mass of consumers (nowhere near the local population) started doing this, it was no longer viable to “make your own” economically. If let’s Say a cricket contains 10kC, and you need 200 a day, how do you scale that to city size populations? I suspect the answer will be mushrooms or yeast, ultimately.

_rpd 8y ago

To avoid a whole new class of zoonotic diseases?

acconrad 8y ago

At this point (with cricket powders, et al) I think a big reason is because it's so dang expensive. If crickets are touted as this miracle protein that are easy to farm, low impact on the environment, and are still considered to be undesirable, then why are these companies charging $35/lb for their protein powder when you can get whey or pea powder for $6-8/lb?

microcolonel 8y ago

Because people do not generally find them as appetizing as vegetables, mammal and poultry flesh, marrow, or offal. The consumption of insects tends to involve dealing with exoskeletons, direct associations with spoilage (maggots), fiddly and tedious carving; most tend to have a dry texture, and very little appetizing saturated fat.

emmanuel_1234 8y ago

The idea that only in "the West" are insect not consumed is misleading. I've been living in "the East" for a decade now, and had to pull some connections to get crickets in Thailand, or water cockroaches in China. Those are consumed, but not staples (just like French people don't feed on a snails and frog diet).

BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
> just like French people don't feed on a snails and frog diet People might not eat them every day, certainly not at pork and bread levels, but frozen escargot and cuisses de grenouille are easily found in any grocery store in France that's large enough to have a freezer section.

lookACamel 8y ago

How to write about eating insects: Muse about why Europeans don't eat insects. Claim that eating insects is a big thing in Asia, Africa, and various indigenous cultures. Mention seafood. Talk about some new insect farming and processing ventures. Point out the supposed eco-friendly advantage. Point out that they are rich in protein. Point out that they're cheap to raise. Make a quip about how we're already eating insects because tiny minuscule bits end up in processed foods.