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Entrepreneur raises millions of bugs to tackle food waste problem (2017)
- contingencies 8y agoInteresting. Jinan is the modern center of Shandong province, one of China's oldest continuously inhabited provinces according to the traditional view of the growth of Chinese civilization. It is pretty much denuded after 3,000 years of intensive agriculture, so any means to reuse food waste is welcome. If anyone has the chance to visit, the nearby town of Linzi has a musuem of cuju[0], an ancient Chinese game which FIFA recognized as the earliest form of association football. The ancient capital of Qingzhou[1] is fascinating, with some of the oldest mosques and most important Buddhist statuary as well as carved Buddhist grottoes on nearby mountains and a huge picturesque park-valley dividing in the middle of town. And the nearby town of Dezhou[2] holds the tomb of a Philippino Muslim sultan who is thought to have been murdered by the Chinese after failing to display appropriate deference to the Emperor. Then of course there's the home of Confucius - Qufu[3], the old German treaty port of Qingdao[4], etc. Not a bad province for those with historical inclinations! On the subject of food waste, we are planning to collect and recycle from our food robots but this may be hampered by regulations frustrating importing food waste across the Chinese/HK and Chinese/Macau borders. We shall see. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuju https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuju [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingzhou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingzhou [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dezhou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dezhou [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qufu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qufu [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingdao http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingdao
- jazzyjackson 8y agoWhat kind of food robots do you have?
- contingencies 8y agoScary awesome ones that make noodles. :)
- sekasi 8y agoThis reminds me heavily on the 'perfect food' issue primarily in western countries. Every apple that's not pretty, every cucumber that's not straight and so on. All just goes from the supermarket into a bin. It's a really horrible amount of waste that easily could solve many issues around poverty and hunger, but yet, very little action. Good to see more momentum around food waste.
- debacle 8y agoIt's also horrible because, in the quest for the perfect looking food, flavor and nutrition are often the first thing to go.
- taneq 8y agoPerfect looking with unnaturally long shelf life, yeah. Tomatoes certainly aren't the same thing I remember them being, for instance.
- wishinghand 8y agoHow did they used to taste?
- rootusrootus 8y agoYou can grow excellent tomatoes yourself, or head to a local farmer's market for a reasonable selection of 'real' tomatoes. The short answer -- a properly ripe tomato doesn't need any help whatsoever from salt or sugar to make it tasty.
- jazzyjackson 8y agoKeep your eyes out for "Heirloom tomatoes" or my favorite, zebra-stripe tomatoes. They're a lot smaller, vary in color a lot. Pack a punch, I like to just snack on them whole.
- taneq 8y agoLike tomatoes, instead of like watery cardboard.
- deepGem 8y agoLooks like the protein can be consumed by humans as well, since many people eat roaches. Can't the protein powder be used like whey isolate powder? If yes, that's a massive industry to tap.
- andrewflnr 8y agovideo of burly men lifting weights Try Roach Protein! The workout supplement that will not die! heavy metal guitar sting
- mancerayder 8y agoRo Bro Protein. "Contains no soy, guaranteed!"
- gus_massa 8y agoThe food for farm animal for human consumption is heavily controlled. You can't give them any crap. They also need strict veterinary controls. But if the roaches are farmed to produce food that is given to animals that are consumed by humans, the extra level of indirection makes everything more easy.
- yesenadam 8y agoThe food for farm animal for human consumption is heavily controlled. You can't give them any crap. "poultry litter or broiler litter is a mixture of poultry excreta, spilled feed, feathers, and material used as bedding in poultry operations ... it is now also used as a livestock feed as a cost-saving measure compared with other feedstock materials, particularly for beef animals." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_litter#Use_as_cattle_feed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_litter#Use_as_cattle_f...
- jazzyjackson 8y agojesus f chirst that made me choke reading that this is legal in the united states. Thanks for the localavore booster shot.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- m3kw9 8y agoSomething doesn’t add up, the roach eat but they need to shit and roaches don’t grow after reaching certain size. So at the point they’d be just eating and shitting. The shit can’t be used as protein, so there still need to land fill that waste correct? The article isn’t telling the whole story.
- oh_sigh 8y agoTheir poop is compost.
- GW150914 8y agoAs oh_sigh says their castings can be used as compost, and the roaches themselves can probably be used to make fish or animal feed. In fact their poop might too. People might hesitate at the prospect of eating roaches, or shit, but pass it all through some tilapia and they’re thrilled.
- acheron 8y agoPeople might hesitate at the prospect of eating roaches, or shit, but pass it all through some tilapia and they’re thrilled. Yeah, but that’s normal. People don’t want to eat grass either until it’s passed through a cow or a sheep.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- m3kw9 8y agoMust be one of the worse place to work on earth too
- petre 8y agoYeah, imagine if the cockroach containment breaks and they start to roam freely into neighbouring factories, office buildings or worse, homes. Expect properties near cockroach food recycling factories to be quite cheap.
- m3kw9 8y agoI googled pics and the place in hallways is just overrun by roaches, not sure how they can contain those things. Back to topic, they say they grind up the rotting food and feed it into a massive glass container, imagine the smell along with all that
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- URSpider94 8y agoBlack solider flies (BSF) are another popular food composting insect. Their larvae are absolutely ravenous, and chickens go bananas for them. Their castings are not that nutritious, but they make a good bedding for worm composting. As an extra plus, unlike cockroaches the adult flies are not pests - they don’t bite people and they won’t stay around unless there’s rotting food. I would NOT want a cockroach farm anywhere near my home, while I would be just fine with a BSF farm in my own yard. Video: https://youtu.be/5M6u9ZX5ecE https://youtu.be/5M6u9ZX5ecE
- GistNoesis 8y agoIsn't there an issue with biomagnification ? I mean the waste probably went into contact or already contain toxic molecules. How can it be a good idea to feed it to chicken again ?
- colbyh 8y agoThis sounds like pure marketing to me. Statements like "Cockroaches are also a raw material in traditional Chinese medicine, known to be able to promote detoxification" and "found that chickens fed with the powder were not only healthier but also grew stronger and faster than normal chickens" without citations sets off all sorts of alarm bells. And I don't know a ton about this area in general but it seems like if you are separating the organic compounds from trash then compost centers would be the real alternative (rather than landfills)?
- jazzyjackson 8y agoDon't know about the chinese medicine, but insects chewing organic matter can be better than compost if you don't have a lot of dry carbon (paper, twigs, leaves whathaveyou). If you just let lots of fruit rot, you get anaerobic decomposition, which is slow and releases lots of methane (greenhouse gas) not to mention smells like rotting fruit. Can't compost meat without some real disease issues either. I've got a friend with Black Soldier Fly larvae eating his leftovers of all kinds. Raw meat, pineapple, it all gets turned to dirt. Insects are magic.
- viggity 8y agoI would love it if newspapers/media outlets had to attach a bibliography or some form of citation. Unfortunately not only is it not common practice, I'm not sure that I've ever seen one. I only see citations in scientific papers.
- acct1771 8y agoWhy do I feel like the stuff they're eating is going to work itself back into our food supply somewhere down the line?
- PakG1 8y agoSustainable business cycle! :)
- kristianp 8y agoOk, so they've found all these bugs, but who is going to pay to fix them? This is the problem with open-source.
- cryptozeus 8y agoAt first I thought the title of this post was wrong or satire :)