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"Parasitic developmental forms were detected in 244 (81.33%) out of 300 (100%) examined insect farms. In 206 (68.67%) of the cases, the identified parasites wer

"Parasitic developmental forms were detected in 244 (81.33%) out of 300 (100%) examined insect farms. In 206 (68.67%) of the cases, the identified parasites were pathogenic for insects only; in 106 (35.33%) cases, parasites were potentially parasitic for animals; and in 91 (30.33%) cases, parasites were potentially pathogenic for humans. " Sounds horrific. How does this compare to other food sources?

ars 4y ago
We've been eating other foods for a very long time, and we've developed methods to handle, and prevent, the parasites. Cook meat, make sure fruits and vegetables are not blighted, ferment dairy, various preservation methods from pickling to canning to smoking. The list of methods is enormous. We haven't been eating insects except in times of famine. We have not yet developed methods of dealing with it.
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  Humans have been eating insects for a long time. In south africa they eat ants, china they eat scorpio, thailand they eat crickets... The ants and the scorpio are quite tasty IMO. On the other hand, I know of places where their casual vegetables are dangerous because their hold traces of animals feces with pathogens but you couldn't tell when buying them. And finally, I remember eating the best eggs ever from my mother old neighbourg for years. One day friends from the city come, and eating them, get sick. So there is a strong habit component. The study on insects is interesting but more informations is needed to draw conclusions.
  - shaburn 4y ago
    These are trivial quantities that are unreasonable to reference.
    - asien 4y ago
      That’s correct. The startup Ynsect at the moment is targeting Fish Farming not human. What would be the impact over many generations of that type of food ? I’m scared of the “SuperBug” type of disease that would be resistant to antibiotics because it’s been dormant in us for too long...
    - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
      Trivial quantities at the scale of the global population today, not at the scale of local indigenous people for millenia. If we want to know if insect consumption can be adopted, just looking at industrialized insect farms production given to city folks is going to give us a partial understanding of what's possible. We need to know things like: - are those parasites massively more presents in farms than in nature (it's the case for fishes) ? - what's the probability of the parasites to infects the average consummer ? (We eat parasites all the time) - if this probaility is high, can a population adapt over time so that this probability goes down ? Etc
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > Humans have been eating insects for a long time. In south africa they eat ants, china they eat scorpio, thailand they eat crickets... I'm in South Africa. I've never heard of the ants thing, but it is most definitely NOT NORMAL over here to eat those things; rich people may do it as a delicacy, like they would eat caviar, but it never was normal to eat insects over here.
    - gspetr 4y ago
      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33396313/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33396313/ "Indigenous Knowledge about Consumption of Edible Insects in South Africa" >Edible insects are a nutritious diet and play an important role in people's livelihoods in rural areas. Just how many rich people are out there in SA's rural areas?
      - lelanthran 4y ago
        From that study: > This might be the main reason why the consumption of insects is largely practiced in rural areas where high levels of unemployment and people with no formal education are found. In addition, people who are unemployed consume edible insects more because they have to do so to meet nutritional requirement needs. Well, that actually explains why I have not seen or even heard of people eating insects in the 40-odd years that I've lived here: I'm not usually talking to unemployed people in rural areas who face famine without insects. Unemployed rural people are still in the minority, and that still makes it 'not-normal'. The poor people and unemployed people I see in non-rural South Africa still don't eat insects.
    - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
      Normal for who ? There are 11 official languages in SA, the population is very diverse, and indigenous people have different habits than city dwellers.
  - Shorel 4y ago
    In Colombia, we (sometimes) eat ants. They taste like something in between pop corn, peanuts, and butter. Google for 'Hormigas culonas'. The only reason it's not more common, is the price, they are quite expensive.
- kseistrup 4y ago
  Who are the “we” you are referring to? “Western civilization”? I lived and worked in Zambia for a while, and there — and possibly in many other countries in Africa — it was common to eat ants, grasshoppers, and caterpillars when they were in season. I never had the chance to taste the caterpillars — and it would probably have been a challenge for me — but the fried grasshoppers and ants were delicious. The article at https://askentomologists.com/2015/02/09/why-dont-we-eat-bugs-in-western-culture/ https://askentomologists.com/2015/02/09/why-dont-we-eat-bugs... suggests that eating insects is a “tropical” thing.
  - shaburn 4y ago
    Insects also kill more humans there through disease than almost anything right? Where is any data or scientific research on the volumes or substance of this over anecdotes?
    - jeanlou 4y ago
      I would suggest you look at studies by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), you'll find data
    - kseistrup 4y ago
      There are some data at e.g.: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316431740_Entomophagy_Insects_as_Food https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316431740_Entomopha... https://www.statista.com/topics/4806/edible-insects/ https://www.statista.com/topics/4806/edible-insects/
  - aaron695 4y ago
- jeanlou 4y ago
  I assume in the Western part of the world, you haven't been eating insects in normal times, but it's not the case in other regions. In my country for instance, people eat termites, crickets, caterpillars/larvae of rynchophorus, Augosoma centurus among others. They are a considerable source of nutriments such as proteins and lipids.
  - fzfaa 4y ago
    I assume that you are talking about a third world country. Will people keep eating bugs once they become wealthy enough?
    - jeanlou 4y ago
      Absolutely, I'm convinced people will keep on eating insects as wealth increases. It's not out of constrain that people have them in their diet, but it's part of their culinary culture. Of course, as people get wealthier, new habits form, they are able to afford previously unattainable food, and surely they're will a shift in the diet, but eating insects will not be eliminated.
- defrost 4y ago
  > We haven't been eating insects except in times of famine. We have not yet developed methods of dealing with it. Literally a "What do you mean 'we' Tonto?" statement. Here in one of the oldest continuously settled by the original arrivals outside of Africa parts of the world (Australia), foods such as the Witchetty grub and the Honey ant are nutrituous high food value, much sought after delicacies and not some kind of "only in a famine" fallback.
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
That's the right question. And other food sources from similar farmers.
- shaburn 4y ago
  I think the brakes should be slammed until that is answered. Unless we want another pandemic. Given the rate of mutation and transmission in bugs with natural gestation and migration, the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential without a similar dataset in other human food sources.
  - eru 4y ago
    > [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...] What does that even mean? Do you want to say that the probability is high?
    - shaburn 4y ago
      Extremely probable as well as extremely dangerous outcome. Analogous to the risk of ruin in finance, not simply an undesirable out probability. Should we not believe the research above to contain 1/3 insects tested carried pathogenic parasites? Does this not strike you as extreme. Potentially an order or orders of magnitude more dangerous?
      - eru 4y ago
        Eating insects is about as dangerous as it was ten years ago or twenty years ago. If more people are eating insects than before that might increase risks. I don't really have any opinion on this, nor any horse in the race. But, what does any of this have to do with exponentials? > [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...] Exponential in what input variable?
        runnig 4y ago
        probably they mean ``` probability(catastrophic outcomes) == e ``` /s
usrusr 4y ago
Other food species, in their wild forms, don't rely quite as hard on a fast generation cycle to solve parasites. If individuals of your species can lay eggs and die before the exponential curve of some infection reaches the steep parts, that's good enough, problem solved. It's the same reason as why short-lived programs require neither free nor GC and why we prefer to not bother with types in one-shot scripts.
- purist33 4y ago
  Thats an excellent point. Insects dont need to be hardened for their pathogens if they dont necessarily have to survive for the species to stay alive. Also loved the computer program analogy.
Ekaros 4y ago
This makes sense to me. When you actually look at farming practises. Trying to maximise the productive load in a space. As usual perfect breeding ground for anything. Now, how do natural habitats compare? And in those do these parasites affect the reproductive success?

ars 4y ago

We've been eating other foods for a very long time, and we've developed methods to handle, and prevent, the parasites. Cook meat, make sure fruits and vegetables are not blighted, ferment dairy, various preservation methods from pickling to canning to smoking. The list of methods is enormous. We haven't been eating insects except in times of famine. We have not yet developed methods of dealing with it.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago
Humans have been eating insects for a long time. In south africa they eat ants, china they eat scorpio, thailand they eat crickets... The ants and the scorpio are quite tasty IMO. On the other hand, I know of places where their casual vegetables are dangerous because their hold traces of animals feces with pathogens but you couldn't tell when buying them. And finally, I remember eating the best eggs ever from my mother old neighbourg for years. One day friends from the city come, and eating them, get sick. So there is a strong habit component. The study on insects is interesting but more informations is needed to draw conclusions.
- shaburn 4y ago
  These are trivial quantities that are unreasonable to reference.
  - asien 4y ago
    That’s correct. The startup Ynsect at the moment is targeting Fish Farming not human. What would be the impact over many generations of that type of food ? I’m scared of the “SuperBug” type of disease that would be resistant to antibiotics because it’s been dormant in us for too long...
  - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
    Trivial quantities at the scale of the global population today, not at the scale of local indigenous people for millenia. If we want to know if insect consumption can be adopted, just looking at industrialized insect farms production given to city folks is going to give us a partial understanding of what's possible. We need to know things like: - are those parasites massively more presents in farms than in nature (it's the case for fishes) ? - what's the probability of the parasites to infects the average consummer ? (We eat parasites all the time) - if this probaility is high, can a population adapt over time so that this probability goes down ? Etc
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > Humans have been eating insects for a long time. In south africa they eat ants, china they eat scorpio, thailand they eat crickets... I'm in South Africa. I've never heard of the ants thing, but it is most definitely NOT NORMAL over here to eat those things; rich people may do it as a delicacy, like they would eat caviar, but it never was normal to eat insects over here.
  - gspetr 4y ago
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33396313/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33396313/ "Indigenous Knowledge about Consumption of Edible Insects in South Africa" >Edible insects are a nutritious diet and play an important role in people's livelihoods in rural areas. Just how many rich people are out there in SA's rural areas?
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      From that study: > This might be the main reason why the consumption of insects is largely practiced in rural areas where high levels of unemployment and people with no formal education are found. In addition, people who are unemployed consume edible insects more because they have to do so to meet nutritional requirement needs. Well, that actually explains why I have not seen or even heard of people eating insects in the 40-odd years that I've lived here: I'm not usually talking to unemployed people in rural areas who face famine without insects. Unemployed rural people are still in the minority, and that still makes it 'not-normal'. The poor people and unemployed people I see in non-rural South Africa still don't eat insects.
  - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
    Normal for who ? There are 11 official languages in SA, the population is very diverse, and indigenous people have different habits than city dwellers.
- Shorel 4y ago
  In Colombia, we (sometimes) eat ants. They taste like something in between pop corn, peanuts, and butter. Google for 'Hormigas culonas'. The only reason it's not more common, is the price, they are quite expensive.
kseistrup 4y ago
Who are the “we” you are referring to? “Western civilization”? I lived and worked in Zambia for a while, and there — and possibly in many other countries in Africa — it was common to eat ants, grasshoppers, and caterpillars when they were in season. I never had the chance to taste the caterpillars — and it would probably have been a challenge for me — but the fried grasshoppers and ants were delicious. The article at https://askentomologists.com/2015/02/09/why-dont-we-eat-bugs-in-western-culture/ https://askentomologists.com/2015/02/09/why-dont-we-eat-bugs... suggests that eating insects is a “tropical” thing.
- shaburn 4y ago
  Insects also kill more humans there through disease than almost anything right? Where is any data or scientific research on the volumes or substance of this over anecdotes?
  - jeanlou 4y ago
    I would suggest you look at studies by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), you'll find data
  - kseistrup 4y ago
    There are some data at e.g.: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316431740_Entomophagy_Insects_as_Food https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316431740_Entomopha... https://www.statista.com/topics/4806/edible-insects/ https://www.statista.com/topics/4806/edible-insects/
- aaron695 4y ago
jeanlou 4y ago
I assume in the Western part of the world, you haven't been eating insects in normal times, but it's not the case in other regions. In my country for instance, people eat termites, crickets, caterpillars/larvae of rynchophorus, Augosoma centurus among others. They are a considerable source of nutriments such as proteins and lipids.
- fzfaa 4y ago
  I assume that you are talking about a third world country. Will people keep eating bugs once they become wealthy enough?
  - jeanlou 4y ago
    Absolutely, I'm convinced people will keep on eating insects as wealth increases. It's not out of constrain that people have them in their diet, but it's part of their culinary culture. Of course, as people get wealthier, new habits form, they are able to afford previously unattainable food, and surely they're will a shift in the diet, but eating insects will not be eliminated.
defrost 4y ago
> We haven't been eating insects except in times of famine. We have not yet developed methods of dealing with it. Literally a "What do you mean 'we' Tonto?" statement. Here in one of the oldest continuously settled by the original arrivals outside of Africa parts of the world (Australia), foods such as the Witchetty grub and the Honey ant are nutrituous high food value, much sought after delicacies and not some kind of "only in a famine" fallback.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

That's the right question. And other food sources from similar farmers.

shaburn 4y ago
I think the brakes should be slammed until that is answered. Unless we want another pandemic. Given the rate of mutation and transmission in bugs with natural gestation and migration, the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential without a similar dataset in other human food sources.
- eru 4y ago
  > [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...] What does that even mean? Do you want to say that the probability is high?
  - shaburn 4y ago
    Extremely probable as well as extremely dangerous outcome. Analogous to the risk of ruin in finance, not simply an undesirable out probability. Should we not believe the research above to contain 1/3 insects tested carried pathogenic parasites? Does this not strike you as extreme. Potentially an order or orders of magnitude more dangerous?
    - eru 4y ago
      Eating insects is about as dangerous as it was ten years ago or twenty years ago. If more people are eating insects than before that might increase risks. I don't really have any opinion on this, nor any horse in the race. But, what does any of this have to do with exponentials? > [...] the probability of catastrophic outcomes is exponential [...] Exponential in what input variable?
      - runnig 4y ago
        probably they mean ``` probability(catastrophic outcomes) == e ``` /s

usrusr 4y ago

Other food species, in their wild forms, don't rely quite as hard on a fast generation cycle to solve parasites. If individuals of your species can lay eggs and die before the exponential curve of some infection reaches the steep parts, that's good enough, problem solved. It's the same reason as why short-lived programs require neither free nor GC and why we prefer to not bother with types in one-shot scripts.

purist33 4y ago
Thats an excellent point. Insects dont need to be hardened for their pathogens if they dont necessarily have to survive for the species to stay alive. Also loved the computer program analogy.

Ekaros 4y ago

This makes sense to me. When you actually look at farming practises. Trying to maximise the productive load in a space. As usual perfect breeding ground for anything. Now, how do natural habitats compare? And in those do these parasites affect the reproductive success?