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If your first alternative to meat is bugs then I’m sorry but you need to readjust your idea of what an alternative is. Until I see Bill Gates do as he preaches

If your first alternative to meat is bugs then I’m sorry but you need to readjust your idea of what an alternative is. Until I see Bill Gates do as he preaches and chow down on a plate of live insects, me and 6 billion other people won’t even consider it. What I will consider is something like mianjin, which is the gluten from wheat. Cheap, sustainable, protein-rich, and easily flavored to whatever food you want. Plus the leftover starches can be used to replicate other animal products like cheeses and bacon, albeit while being completely empty calories.

Symbiote 3y ago
No one is suggesting eating live insects. Around a quarter of the world eats insects each day.
willcipriano 3y ago
Gates and crew are giving up private air travel long before I'm eating bugs.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
I don't know why you'd think they'd be live. I don't eat live chickens, fish or cows. Some people eat live oysters, I guess. I have actually eaten insects on more than one occasion (some kind of fried cricket, I think). They weren't especially tasty, but they also weren't bad. Just a fairly unexciting snack taste-wise. I'd say "high" game or strong cheese is far, far more of an acquired taste than they were. Crustaceans are not insects, but insects basically derive from arthropod proto-crustaceans: fundamentally a prawn and a cricket are each roughly the same distance, phylogenetically speaking, from a cow (actually they have 6 legs, not 10, and most are air-breathers, so they're closer in some ways!). Indeed, they can both trigger shellfish allergies. Maybe we're just more used to "weird sea things" being food than "weird land things". Putting aside the obvious aversion to insect morphologies, if they're being processed into some kind of protein meal, I don't really find that any more objectionable than mechanically-recovered meat slurry, which is a major component of lots of food. Which, to be fair, I do already, generally, avoid.
mrighele 3y ago
I was not advocating eating bugs in place of meat (I don't like the idea either). I was saying that if for some reason we had to forfait meat, I think it would be easier for the average person to have a proper diet if it included bugs than a vegan one. That said, I agree with you, those that advocate such a change are the last ones willing to do it (let's guess when meat will disappear from EU Parliament canteen).

Symbiote 3y ago

No one is suggesting eating live insects. Around a quarter of the world eats insects each day.

willcipriano 3y ago

Gates and crew are giving up private air travel long before I'm eating bugs.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

I don't know why you'd think they'd be live. I don't eat live chickens, fish or cows. Some people eat live oysters, I guess. I have actually eaten insects on more than one occasion (some kind of fried cricket, I think). They weren't especially tasty, but they also weren't bad. Just a fairly unexciting snack taste-wise. I'd say "high" game or strong cheese is far, far more of an acquired taste than they were. Crustaceans are not insects, but insects basically derive from arthropod proto-crustaceans: fundamentally a prawn and a cricket are each roughly the same distance, phylogenetically speaking, from a cow (actually they have 6 legs, not 10, and most are air-breathers, so they're closer in some ways!). Indeed, they can both trigger shellfish allergies. Maybe we're just more used to "weird sea things" being food than "weird land things". Putting aside the obvious aversion to insect morphologies, if they're being processed into some kind of protein meal, I don't really find that any more objectionable than mechanically-recovered meat slurry, which is a major component of lots of food. Which, to be fair, I do already, generally, avoid.

mrighele 3y ago

I was not advocating eating bugs in place of meat (I don't like the idea either). I was saying that if for some reason we had to forfait meat, I think it would be easier for the average person to have a proper diet if it included bugs than a vegan one. That said, I agree with you, those that advocate such a change are the last ones willing to do it (let's guess when meat will disappear from EU Parliament canteen).