4 ms·

I encourage you to research what percentage of bugs are actually edible and a reasonable source of protein in northern climates. And then research the eating ha

I encourage you to research what percentage of bugs are actually edible and a reasonable source of protein in northern climates. And then research the eating habits in regions where the percentage of edible and protein rich insects is significantly higher. Within there, I imagine you will find an answer.

sametmax 8y ago
Also, insect are hard to find in the winter, and much harder to raise at a reasonable quantity than cows and chickens. And if your 1000 sheeps escape in the wild, you have a chance to get some back, and you will be able to protect you fields against them. It's practical. Plusyou don't have to care about venom when cookinh lamb.
- Double_a_92 8y ago
  > and much harder to raise at a reasonable quantity than cows and chickens. Doubt that. Livestock eats up much more energy than its meat gives back (i.e. you would have to feed 7kg of soy protein to get 1kg of meat protein). With insects such as Mealworms that's much easier. They basically eat anything and they turn it almost 1:1 into valuable protein. Also you can raise them pretty much everywhere, even in crammed indoor farms without it being cruel. It's sounded more like you were imagining wild crickets being collected from grass fields or something... which is obviously not a good solution.
  - klodolph 8y ago
    > With insects such as Mealworms that's much easier. They basically eat anything and they turn it almost 1:1 into valuable protein. I looked up the feed conversion ratio for mealworms, I found values around 5:1. This is comparable to beef. Chickens are much better, somewhere around 1.5:1. Some other insects are better or worse in terms of FCR. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4689427/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4689427/
    - schwartzworld 8y ago
      Yeah, but you can farm mealworms in a plastic bin in your apartment. They only eat dry grain and food scraps. They are practical on a small scale in a way that chickens can never be.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    The ratio is more like 5:1, beside, once you fried them, there is not much of it left because they are so small. But nobody wants to eat them raw.
  - AngryData 8y ago
    With modern factory farming that is true, but older subsistence style farming is different. Cows eat grass and weeds, I however can't eat those. Chickens can be fed scraps and inedible seeds and bugs, I can eat some of that but not all of it and chickens will actively look for their own food if possible requiring little work on my part. Pigs will eat literal shit and rotten food like it was a jelly doughnut.
- DrJosiah 8y ago
  You should check out the industrial-scale cockroach farming going on in China. Mostly hermetically sealed buildings; you can put them in cold places, you pump food waste in one side, and get sterile, protein-rich cockroach out the other side. No comment on the taste, but you can do similar things for a variety of non-cockroach insects that may have different taste / texture / emotional connections. If someone makes a tasty product, I'll give it a shot. Until then, I am waiting for the vat-grown beef.
- miluge 8y ago
  My ex roomate was growing mealworms for his iguana and we even ate them. Raising it was super hard, it was in a plastic box with a few lights, fed our food waste and kept in a closet. The trick is to get people to eat them, I tried and it was tasting like chips but I wasn't too hard to convince, my girlfriend on the other end couldnt even look at them...We managed to sneak some one day and she liked it but lost any trust in the food my roomate or myself cooked.
preommr 8y ago
> Within there, I imagine you will find an answer. The answer to what? The post you replied to didn't raise any questions like that. Also, why not just say what your point is rather than being vague and cryptic. And your point about what percentage of insects are edible isn't very relevant because there are like 5k species of mammals and over 900k species of insects, and we don't need more than a handful of different species to actually eat.

sametmax 8y ago

Also, insect are hard to find in the winter, and much harder to raise at a reasonable quantity than cows and chickens. And if your 1000 sheeps escape in the wild, you have a chance to get some back, and you will be able to protect you fields against them. It's practical. Plusyou don't have to care about venom when cookinh lamb.

Double_a_92 8y ago
> and much harder to raise at a reasonable quantity than cows and chickens. Doubt that. Livestock eats up much more energy than its meat gives back (i.e. you would have to feed 7kg of soy protein to get 1kg of meat protein). With insects such as Mealworms that's much easier. They basically eat anything and they turn it almost 1:1 into valuable protein. Also you can raise them pretty much everywhere, even in crammed indoor farms without it being cruel. It's sounded more like you were imagining wild crickets being collected from grass fields or something... which is obviously not a good solution.
- klodolph 8y ago
  > With insects such as Mealworms that's much easier. They basically eat anything and they turn it almost 1:1 into valuable protein. I looked up the feed conversion ratio for mealworms, I found values around 5:1. This is comparable to beef. Chickens are much better, somewhere around 1.5:1. Some other insects are better or worse in terms of FCR. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4689427/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4689427/
  - schwartzworld 8y ago
    Yeah, but you can farm mealworms in a plastic bin in your apartment. They only eat dry grain and food scraps. They are practical on a small scale in a way that chickens can never be.
- sametmax 8y ago
  The ratio is more like 5:1, beside, once you fried them, there is not much of it left because they are so small. But nobody wants to eat them raw.
- AngryData 8y ago
  With modern factory farming that is true, but older subsistence style farming is different. Cows eat grass and weeds, I however can't eat those. Chickens can be fed scraps and inedible seeds and bugs, I can eat some of that but not all of it and chickens will actively look for their own food if possible requiring little work on my part. Pigs will eat literal shit and rotten food like it was a jelly doughnut.
DrJosiah 8y ago
You should check out the industrial-scale cockroach farming going on in China. Mostly hermetically sealed buildings; you can put them in cold places, you pump food waste in one side, and get sterile, protein-rich cockroach out the other side. No comment on the taste, but you can do similar things for a variety of non-cockroach insects that may have different taste / texture / emotional connections. If someone makes a tasty product, I'll give it a shot. Until then, I am waiting for the vat-grown beef.
miluge 8y ago
My ex roomate was growing mealworms for his iguana and we even ate them. Raising it was super hard, it was in a plastic box with a few lights, fed our food waste and kept in a closet. The trick is to get people to eat them, I tried and it was tasting like chips but I wasn't too hard to convince, my girlfriend on the other end couldnt even look at them...We managed to sneak some one day and she liked it but lost any trust in the food my roomate or myself cooked.

preommr 8y ago

> Within there, I imagine you will find an answer. The answer to what? The post you replied to didn't raise any questions like that. Also, why not just say what your point is rather than being vague and cryptic. And your point about what percentage of insects are edible isn't very relevant because there are like 5k species of mammals and over 900k species of insects, and we don't need more than a handful of different species to actually eat.