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Black soldier fly maggots: high in protein with a small carbon footprint
- makerofspoons 7y agoI'm a big fan of cricket flour, and I look forward to seeing more options like it on the market. It looks like they are on their way to producing some, I wonder what the barrier to doing so is if they are committed to getting over the 'ick' factor.
- unixhero 7y agoWhat do you use the cricket flour for?
- makerofspoons 7y agoMostly I include it in my protein shakes, but I also use it for baking.
- unixhero 7y agoCool! I have to try it.
- Y_Y 7y agoNot even Bear Grylls wants to eat something called a "maggot". They're going to need some serious rebranding upfront.
- omarhaneef 7y agoPerhaps "Le Magot -- the new cuisine"
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- biztos 7y agoOr two of them? http://www.lesdeuxmagots.fr/en/paris-restaurant.html http://www.lesdeuxmagots.fr/en/paris-restaurant.html
- inflatableDodo 7y agoMay I suggest 'worm', as it doesn't seem to stop tequila drinkers.
- JabavuAdams 7y agoNope, nope, nope. Not good enough.
- overcast 7y agoThe presence of a mezcal worm is a good indication of a shit product using marketing. No one drinks that stuff unless they are naive.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- unstatusthequo 7y agoMight end up in Beyond Meat and similar for all we know.
- benj111 7y agoGrubs? Fly calves? SFMHPP? (Soldier Fly Maggot High Protein Powder) I suspect some variation of the latter is how this will get into the food chain. Identifiable insects get in the news, but it'll probably be as an additive where it sees most use. After all what percentage of chicken is sold as actual whole pieces of chicken rather than reformed, breaded, sauced, otherwise processed meat?
- TopRattata 7y ago> Fly calves? Micro-veal! Bam, now it's fancy.
- jacobedawson 7y agoWee-veal?
- benj111 7y agoI think you're misunderstanding what we're trying to do here. We're trying to get away from the insectiness, not charge towards it.... Otherwise it would obviously be beeftle.... Until the horse fly meat scandal.
- rmilk 7y ago“Bug Bites” is the name of the fish food in my local pet store. Comes in goldfish formula and algae eater formula. The package says it is grown by Enterra Feed in Canada using unconsumed fruit and vegetable that would go to waste.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoI'm pretty sure he would eat a maggot, its not anything that is different from what he has already eaten
- stirfrykitty 7y agoAndrew Zimmern would surely eat them and maybe has done. He's eaten everything else. I recall him saying the only things he will not eat are Durian and oatmeal (texture thing). Editing to say he did eat grubs on one episode and said something along the lines of it feeling like a massive pop of pus in his mouth. I swore then I would never follow suit.
- twic 7y agoSteve would eat them: http://www.thesneeze.com/steve-dont-eat-it/ http://www.thesneeze.com/steve-dont-eat-it/
- overcast 7y agoAll you need is a clever marketing name, like Chilean Sea Bass. Problem solved.
- JabavuAdams 7y agoReminds me of the pesticide spray bottle that had a magnified picture of a giant juicy grub right where you would have to put your hand to pick up the bottle. Um, great marketing there folks.
- stirfrykitty 7y agoThat episode when Bear killed and "ate" the skunk was hilarious. I recall him saying that cooking it "smelled like burning tires". Hilarious.
- pcmaffey 7y agoBlack oysters.
- omarhaneef 7y agoPrediction: we will evolve to find tasty what we formerly found disgusting. Actually, I wonder why we find bugs disgusting (from an evolutionary perspective). I mean, presumably they're "dirty", but isn't that why we invented cooking?
- Qwertystop 7y agoAn evolutionary perspective is the wrong perspective; there exist plenty of cultures where bugs are not considered disgusting.
- benj111 7y agoCochineal is generally acceptable in western cultures, so there are obviously certain insects acceptable to otherwise non insect eating cultures. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal
- Falling3 7y agoIt's not acceptable in my experience. People are just ignorant to the fact that this is an ingredient.
- benj111 7y agoI think it occupies the same sort of place as factory farming and Turkey Twizzlers. People know about it but prefer not to think about it. You don't get the tabloids announcing the 'hidden insects in our food' either. I suppose you could argue the acceptability of it? people get on with their lives and diets though, it doesn't occupy the same space as eating maggots, can we agree on that.
- astura 7y agoTurkey Twizzlers?
- Circuits 7y agoSorry nope NOPE NOPE!!!!!!!! Isn't happening I am not eating this sorry! NOPE!
- NickM 7y agoSo it's nice to think that maybe this could work to turn food waste back into edible protein, but is this actually more efficient than just composting the waste and using it to grow crops? Sure, maybe this is a good source of protein, but so are, say, beans, right? I would hazard a guess that for most western cultures, it's probably easier to convince people to replace meat with plant-based food than it is to replace meat with bugs. So if we want insect-based foods to take off, I feel like there's got to be some fundamental advantage over just switching to a vegetarian diet. Maybe that advantage exists; I just don't know what it might be.
- jagger27 7y agoFrom TFA: > An acre of land used to raise soldier fly colonies can produce more than 60,000kg of protein per year, according to various peer-reviewed estimates. That’s several orders of magnitude greater than the per-acre protein yield of cattle (about 18kg), soybeans (430kg) or chickens (816kg). At least from a land density POV, it wins hand over fist.
- ianai 7y agoProbably not the full story. What do these bugs need for food? Plants take in water, micronutrients, air, and sunlight.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jagger27 7y agoI just checked the label of my freshwater guppies' favourite food: sure enough, it's pure fly larvae. It was so shocking to me how voracious they were for the tiny grains of ground larvae compared to the typical fish/grain meal flake food. It was touched on in the article: it's not very cheap yet. But it's abundantly clear to me that this type of highly efficient nutrient transfer is going to change the agricultural food chain forever.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoSuggests that it could be an important component of aquaculture.
- ifoundthetao 7y agoIt is. And it's an excellent input for aquaponics too. I used to do this about 10 years ago for a while. It was fun. I learned a lot, and the peppers were delicious.
- JabavuAdams 7y agoGawd, I really don't want to click on that link without disabling images.
- nickserv 7y agoThere's nothing too gross. I was a bit hesitant but it's not the typical larva with legs, eyes and mouthparts all over the place. They look a bit like rice.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- neuronflux 7y agoReminds me of the movie Snowpiercer[1]. The "protein blocks" served to the population are made from ground-up cockroaches. The setting is on a train during an ice-age so they really need to make use of the space efficiently. They don't really go into what the cockroaches eat, I can only assume waste from the population. 1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/
- wyldfire 7y agoIIRC the way it's presented in the film was as a horrifying surprise -- or perhaps as an element of the subjugation/cruelty that the movie focused on. But when I watched it all I could think of was, "Uh, yeah, that's actually the kinda thing that we're considering now."
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y agoIn Snowpiercer, it was only the poor inhabitants of the last coaches that were fed insect protein bars. The rich and powerful in the first coaches ate fillet mignon and the like. My guess is that is how things would play out with insects as food for humans in the real world, too. The poor will have to eat grubs and crickets "for the environment" while the rich continue to eat as and what they please. This is my guess based on my experience of how food works in the UK. If you can afford it, you can eat fresh fruit and vegetables, or the best cuts of meat. If you can't, then tough: it's kebabs, sliced bread that's high in trans fats, sugars and salts, and at best tinned veg and fruit, for you.
- IdiocyInAction 7y ago> If you can afford it, you can eat fresh fruit and vegetables, or the best cuts of meat. If you can't, then tough: it's kebabs, sliced bread that's high in trans fats, sugars and salts, and at best tinned veg and fruit, for you. What? In continental Europe vegetables, fresh or tinned, are by far the cheapest option. Meat is always expensive.
- noirbot 7y ago
- aketchum 7y agoI went deep down the rabbit hole for almost a month trying to figure out how to farm escamoles[1] in an industrial ant farm. They sell for $40-100 per kg and are apparently delicious (still haven't had the chance to try them myself). I decided I didn't want to spend the effort involved in trying to set up the world's first industrial ant egg farm but all the research did convince me there should be a market for insect protein, although I think the effort should be directed at feeding livestock. Chickens are an obvious option but what really stuck out to me was the opportunity for feeding farmed fish. Farmed fish need protein to grow (duh) and the protein they are fed is generally fishmeal made up of smaller "worthless" fish caught by commercial fishing vessels. The problem is that it takes 5 lbs of fishmeal to grow a pound of farmed fish. Not very sustainable if farmed fishing is supposed to protect wild fish populations. Fishmeal fetches a price between $1500 and $2000 per metric ton [2], so there is a market for a viable replacement. In the end, I realized I was basically redesigning a company that a fraternity brother had started several years earlier - Grubbly Farms [3]. All this is to say that I think insects as a protein source are very exciting and I look forward to seeing how the industry evolves. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escamol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escamol 2 - https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=fish-meal&months=120 https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=fish-meal&... 3 - https://grubblyfarms.com/ https://grubblyfarms.com/
- natalyarostova 7y agoThat's a lot of work and a strong opinion for having never tried it, lol.
- fernandopj 7y agoIt's what I'd expect from an experienced entrepreneur to do: sense an opportunity, investigate market deeply, and make an impassioned decision about starting a venture or not, if the business model makes sense & they'd be ideally positioned to make a run for it. (edit) gender neutral
- natalyarostova 7y ago
- october_sky 7y agoI wonder if this could be useful for mars or moon colonies
- forgotmypw3 7y agoCould someone paste the text, please?
- smcg 7y agoCheck out Rust Belt Riders, another business that is using black soldier fly larvae for compost. https://www.rustbeltriders.com/ https://www.rustbeltriders.com/ and they do use the flies as chicken/fish feed.
- stcredzero 7y agoTrue story. (Long but also topical, so just bear with it.) I had become fascinated with a traditional band from the region of Asturias on the northern coast of Spain, named Llan de Cubel. I liked a lot of their tunes, but there was this rousing song of theirs I liked, though I never knew what it was about. A few years after I discovered them, I got to meet them at the Lake Eden Arts Festival, where they finally explained the song. It turns out the song was about this kind of soft, moldy, strongly flavored cheese (somewhat like Gorgonzola) made in households in Asturias. Often, flies would land on the cheese and lay their eggs. However, the flavor of the cheese is so strong, the maggots would just end up tasting just like the cheese, so many of the locals would simply eat the maggots for the protein. (If you like British Isles trad music and are curious to check out Llan de Cubel, start with the tune set San Roque.)
- twic 7y agoSee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_marzu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_marzu
- prando 7y agoI found this nifty video that explains the operation of such a facility in Indonesia! Cool stuff! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M6u9ZX5ecE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M6u9ZX5ecE
- lsniddy 7y agowhats with all this bug eating propaganda?
- DanBC 7y agoWe need protein to feed the world. Beef and lamb are environmentally horrific, and for some people there are ethical problems too. Chicken is less harmful for the environment (still pretty bad), but the ethical problems for most forms of chicken (anything other than properly free range) are severe. We could try plant based diets for everyone, and if done correctly that would increase health, but it's possibly tricky to do. Supplementing a plant based diet with entomophagy could feed the world at considerably lower carbon footprint than current meat based diets.
- spork12 7y agoThis would be a great way to help feed the poor and homeless as groceries continue to get more expensive!
- carapace 7y agoRoach farms have been a thing for a decade or so now: https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-c1-china-cockroach-20131015-dto-htmlstory.html https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-c1-china-cockroach-20131...
- mad_dog_shark 7y agoMy brain is sold on the reasons for producing bugs to eat, but my stomach is sadly queasy about it. Maybe if they ground them and made patties out of them or something to get past the feeling of eating tiny bugs? Does anyone have experience getting over this?
- some-guy 7y agoI'm in the same boat as you. But maybe we aren't the target here--if we were to feed this to our children from a very young age, maybe they wouldn't have the same reaction as us. When I saw a video of how sausages were made much later in my life, it didn't have the same queasy feeling since I have eaten and enjoyed sausages from childhood. My brain says that the way sausages are made is _far_ more disgusting than the way these larvae are produced, but my stomach doesn't feel the same way. Let's help guide the next generation's stomachs in the right direction. In the meantime, I'll see if I can get used to eating some kind of ground-up bug meal.
- povertyworld 7y agoI was wondering what the next frontier of virtue signaling food taboos could be after veganism.
- basq 7y agoSince we're being pedantic, insects are still animals, and therefore eating them is not vegan.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- povertyworld 7y agoYeah, obviously. I meant "beyond" in terms of fashion. One might work at Facebook destroying democracy and the fabric of society, but hey, they follow some food taboos so it's all good! To really go "beyond" veganism would be to follow a traditional Jain diet where roots and some fruits are also banned.
- Pfhreak 7y agoCalling veganism "virtue signaling" is one of the most awful and vapid takes I've seen on HN in a while.
- winslow 7y agoIf it's any vote of confidence, our bearded dragon finds them very tasty.
- ErotemeObelus 7y agoHow much money do you want to bet that millionaires and over will elect to opt-out of the bug cuisine? That means they want to make poor people eat bugs! The only way this "program" could be fair is if both billionaires and joe schmoe are both forced to eat bugs by law.