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Cricket Juice Healthier Than Orange Juice? Many Insects Loaded with Antioxidants
- superpermutat0r 7y agoNo ingredient is healthy or unhealthy. Diet can be that or not. Having more vitamins, or other stuff means nothing. Body thrives on variability not on some optimality based on nutrient amounts.
- izzydata 7y agoCan there not exist some concoction of every possible nutrient the body needs in ideal proportions to where you would never need to consume anything else?
- ChuckMcM 7y agoSoylent certainly thinks so.
- 0xffff2 7y agoYou would still have to regulate amount. Even if such a concoction existed, too much or too little would still be unhealthy.
- neaden 7y agoThat assumes your bodies need is static, but unless you are living in a place without seasons, consistently exercising the exact same amount, and not aging, that is not going to be true.
- perl4ever 7y agoI always thought there was an evolutionarily produced tendency to not want to eat the same thing all the time, because if you rely on one food type from one source, no matter how good it is, you risk something going wrong with it that you don't sense. So I would think that even if you came up with the scientifically "perfect" food, it wouldn't take long before most people felt ill at the sight.
- gringoDan 7y agoOrange juice is essentially just sugar. Crickets are high-protein and low-carb. This makes sense intuitively...though I think "cricket juice" may need some rebranding.
- Dumblydorr 7y agoApparently, milk companies lobbied to have almond and other forms of alternative milk rebranded as "nut juice."
- eitland 7y agoKind of makes sense. It isn’t milk. It is good that big grocery isn’t allowed to mislead people so easily, but I’m less convinced than I was before I typed out my comment.
- sthgrau 7y agoIt isn't dairy, that is correct. Note however, that using the term 'milk' to plant liquids has hundreds of years of history in the English language.
- eitland 7y agoThanks, I wasn’t aware. Happy I was a bit careful with that comment.
- cannonedhamster 7y agoYeah it's only been recently since the nut and soy milk have started eating into the profits of dairy farmers that they've started being all up in arms. Look for vegan cheeses and vegi burgers to be the next targets. The also went after mayonnaise substitutes as well. It's just a move to use the legal system to student stifle free market competition.
- 7y ago
- neaden 7y agoJuice isn't actually healthy due to it's high sugar content.
- tasty_freeze 7y agoI recently read the book "Oxygen, The molecule that made the world" by Nick Lane. Roughly the first half talks about the geologic aspects of oxygen in world history. The second half talks about biological processes relating to oxygen. One thing he gets across is that dietary anti-oxidant intake is often ineffective, and in some cases can be harmful. Also, vitamin C isn't just an antioxidant -- it it involved in a number of different reactions and having too much can be as bad as too little. In fact it can be a pro-oxidant.
- notafraudster 7y agoMy almost certainly incorrect chronology of events, cobbled together from pop science headlines I've read: 1) Free radicals are bad because they cause oxydation (oxydization?) and this is bad for our cells? 2) Thus, anti-oxidants are good, because they prevent this process 3) People recommended more dietary anti-oxidants 4) It turns out that ingesting anti-oxidants doesn't actually produce the antioxidants necessary to combat free radicals, the same way eating dietary fat doesn't create human fat. Dietary sources of anti-oxidants largely are not absorbed and are useless. 5) Instead, we should look for foods that stimulate production of anti-oxidants in... the liver? the spleen? Wherever those are made in your body? But no one knows which foods are good for that?
- aprao 7y agoI recall reading in 'The Vital Question' (also by Nick Lane) that free radicals (produced when a cell is unable to meet energy production demands) signals the replication of mitochondria. Antioxidants suppress this signal which leads to cell death. Interestingly an increase in free radicals themselves beyond a certain threshold also result in programmed cell death
- goodcharles 7y agoAlso should add - some molecules like Nitric Oxide act as both an antioxdiant and free radical. The vitamin sellers often use the browning of a cut apple as an easy-to-explain example of the effects of oxidation.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoDo insects count in vegetarian diets? They are an excellent source of protein. I tried some "cricket flour" brownies (which like most edibles taste like brownies). Their sales pitch was the yummy taste of brownies, twice the protein content of eggs. Presumably targeting the muscle building folks. Conceptually it shouldn't be a big deal, but it is. Bugs as food being perhaps the biggest marketing challenge you can come up with.
- capkutay 7y agoAt first i wanted to say of course insects count against being vegetarian. But then I thought about it...vegetarians don't want to eat living things, but technically plants are alive too. Is mass farming vegetables as inhumane as mass-farming cows, pigs, chickens etc? probably not. But mass farming insects may not be anymore inhumane than the life wild insects are already accustomed to (living in tight, dark spaces). From a sustainability standpoint, there's no question that getting your protein from insects is better for the environment than cows/pigs/chickens. But some people are vegetarian just because they're generally grossed out by eating bloody flesh...so just from that angle i'd say insects are not vegetarian.
- panarky 7y agoRelevant from one day ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20432600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20432600
- slothtrop 7y agoThere are 'non-sentient' animals like mollusks. I'd hazard insects are, generally, dumb enough that cruelty is further removed. We kill house insects all the time, for no reason other than they bother us.
- stcredzero 7y agoWe kill house insects all the time, for no reason other than they bother us. The fear of some technologists, is that someday, super-optimizing sentient AIs will treat us the same way.
- DesiLurker 7y agoSell it to Brits & Indians, they love cricket... Sorry couldn't resist ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- vipbababd 7y agoOrange juice is essentially just sugar. Crickets are high-protein and low-carb. This makes sense intuitively...though I think "cricket juice" may need some rebranding.
- RenRav 7y agoPlain water is probably healthier than orange-flavored sugar juice. I'm interested in a future where farming insects for the protein and such is normal. I'm sure 90% of people don't even know that 'whey' protein is from milk. Give cricket powder a better name and then sell it cheap, if it's nutritious then it should catch on.
- cannonedhamster 7y agoThere's been a single recent study that came out with the claim that any drink with high sugar can increase your overall cancer risk and sugar may impact tumor growth. Unlike the study is repeated though it's just a single study that could be an aberration. Rebranding like hamburger and pork but only not chicken and water creature like fish, clams, etc. It's weird, but it would probably work.
- perl4ever 7y ago"sugar may impact tumor growth" Well, everything needs sugar. Cancer cells are full of water too, aren't they?
- HocusLocus 7y agoDrink cricket juice if you're thirsty! It has Water Molecules(tm) Eat the shrimp AND the shell (bugs)! Every time I read about something disgusting that is touted because it has 'antioxidants' I ask myself, can't we synthesize antioxidants in the laboratory? I'll take mine from a Pyrex beaker, thanks.