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I will not eat the bugs, but I would eat fish or poultry that has been raised on insect protein. It's an interesting use case because fish farms (for common non

I will not eat the bugs, but I would eat fish or poultry that has been raised on insect protein. It's an interesting use case because fish farms (for common non-herbivore fish species) are traditionally fed on fish meal, which means that the protein is ultimately coming from the ocean one way or another. I wonder if [plants -> bugs -> fish -> human] is more or less efficient than just traditional [plants -> {cows, pigs, sheep, goats}]. Also, the bug protein could be an additive to mostly plant based diets for traditional farm animals.

Pet_Ant 3y ago
What if ground crickets were added to like 75% ground beef? You'd never know and it be healthier and have less impact on the environment.
- oconnore 3y ago
  I apologize if this seems blunt and incurious, but I think I can speak for MANY people when I say: absolutely not.
  - username135 3y ago
    Chances are you, and everyone youre speaking for, has likely surreptitiously already eaten many unsavory things
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - ohdannyboy 3y ago
      There's a big difference between eating trace amounts of stuff you can't totally eliminate (at least not easily) and making it a component on purpose.
    - beardog 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels
  - 2023throwawayy 3y ago
    Why? I have no problem with this.
  - woleium 3y ago
    There was an experiment done where they stood outside of a supermarket and asked people if they would buy dolphin friendly tuna only. The vast majority said yes. Then they compared that to actual sales and discovered that people basically voted with their wallets, with the vast majority picking the cheaper can of fish regardless of dolphin status (Aside, dolphin friendly tuna is a scam, don’t believe it.)
    - foobarian 3y ago
      And this is also how we got Walmart and Amazon.
  - Galacta7 3y ago
    Too late, if you're in the US. The FDA has an allowable level of insects or insect fragments in much of the food you eat. So you're probably getting a decent amount of insects and other things (probably best not to think about) in your food. A ground beef/insect blend only adjusts that ratio upward, and would be more transparent about it. Bon appetite, lol.
    - BobbyJo 3y ago
      The amounts allowed by the FDA are restricted to certain food types, and vastly lower amounts than would be present if it were an intentional additive.
  - Shekelphile 3y ago
    The discourse around the subject seems to be overwhelming disgust by the people who would be victimized by it and unending enthusiasm by the rich who would not be forced to eat bugs. I think at this point it's sane to say that if this trend continues the only option left will be violence against the people pushing this (as well as their beneficiaries) onto broader society, if government will not step in to stop businesses from pursuing this agenda.
    - titzer 3y ago
      Replace "eat bugs" with "verb thing" and you've pretty much described the entire dynamic of class struggle spanning several centuries. The "verb thing" baseline has just shifted as humanity makes some progress.
- ohdannyboy 3y ago
  I'd wait until some longer term studies come out on the meat. Humans have no tradition of eating them (edit: looks like i was wrong on this point). I'm not conceived it's healthier and I'm totally convinced the people pushing it don't care about us. I'd also like to see the ultra-wealthy social planners eat bugs, at least at the opulent summits where they plan it for our class of people. As long as they're eating steaks it's a bad look (same as them owning yachts, taking a private plane to an event then biking the last two blocks and talking about how private car ownership needs to be abolished).
  - darth_avocado 3y ago
    > Humans have no tradition of eating them Bugs are very common food in Asian, African and South American cultures. Edit: I also remember seeing some ant stuff in Mexico. And I’ve read about indigenous cultures in Australia and North America also having insects as part of their food. I’m sure if I look for it, I’ll find something on European cultures as well. Modern food is just a representation of food that got commercialized, but in reality human diet used to be much more varied than we are used to seeing now.
    - ohdannyboy 3y ago
      I wasn't aware of that. Are they similar and eaten as a significant source of protein?
      - darth_avocado 3y ago
        Yes. There’s plenty of YouTube channels exploring this if you’re interested. https://youtu.be/nZ3Zc1DJOgY https://youtu.be/nZ3Zc1DJOgY
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "Humans have no tradition of eating them" Of course they do. Try some survival courses, our ancestors ate everything, they could stomach. Only (or mostly) the western culture stopped doing it for whatever reason. "If you think eating insects is gross, you may be in the cultural minority. Throughout history, people have relished insects as food. Today, many cultures still do." https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/eating-bugs-cultural-cuisine https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/eating-bu...
jplrssn 3y ago
Beef production (as well as meat produced from sheep and goats) is one of the most environmentally costly ways of producing food, because of methane emissions [0]. I don't imagine substituting bugs for grass would make much of a difference there. I myself would quite happily try a bug-derived Beyond Meat burger or similar. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221214-what-is-the-lowest-carbon-protein https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221214-what-is-the-lowe...
- Detrytus 3y ago
  I thought that this methane emission was easily counteracted by some food additive, was it seaweed? EDIT: yes, it was: https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/case-studies/seaweed-supplements-reducing-methane-emissions.html https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/case-studies/seaweed-suppleme...
  - jplrssn 3y ago
    Good point. But there are questions around the long-term safety of seaweed additives. And how many farmers would pay for seaweed while methane is free to emit?
    - Detrytus 3y ago
      Well, you can make it mandatory, the same way some countries require cattle vaccination, and other things. In the end it should be more acceptable to general public than just forbidding them to eat beef. And the seaweed shouldn't be too expensive, after all it is "weed". And with more research they possibly could isolate that one tiny chemical substance from seaweed that does all the work here, and synthesize it, so we can produce it cheaply?
  - peterpost2 3y ago
    >easily counteracted No, it's not easy. This requires specific kinds of seaweeds to be effective, the species grows only in warm places(so not close to where we tend to keep cows) and it is not grown in large quantities yet, nor is the impact of doing that known. We are quite some time away from doing this large scale.
darth_avocado 3y ago
Bugs are very common additives to chicken feed in smaller farms. Not sure about commercial operations. As a backyard chicken owner, meal worms are a regular thing I feed to my chickens.
- oooyay 3y ago
  I keep a compost pile going in my chicken run to supplement the chickens food. They can't survive on only bugs though, there's a lot of minerals they need that come directly from plants. Some people may be surprised to learn that chickens will eat just about anything, including you.
some_random 3y ago
>I wonder if [plants -> bugs -> fish -> human] is more or less efficient than just traditional [plants -> {cows, pigs, sheep, goats}]. Also, the bug protein could be an additive to mostly plant based diets for traditional farm animals. The trick here is that the bugs can (at least at the current scale) be fed using food waste which almost certainly makes it more efficient

Pet_Ant 3y ago

What if ground crickets were added to like 75% ground beef? You'd never know and it be healthier and have less impact on the environment.

oconnore 3y ago
I apologize if this seems blunt and incurious, but I think I can speak for MANY people when I say: absolutely not.
- username135 3y ago
  Chances are you, and everyone youre speaking for, has likely surreptitiously already eaten many unsavory things
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ohdannyboy 3y ago
    There's a big difference between eating trace amounts of stuff you can't totally eliminate (at least not easily) and making it a component on purpose.
  - beardog 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels
- 2023throwawayy 3y ago
  Why? I have no problem with this.
- woleium 3y ago
  There was an experiment done where they stood outside of a supermarket and asked people if they would buy dolphin friendly tuna only. The vast majority said yes. Then they compared that to actual sales and discovered that people basically voted with their wallets, with the vast majority picking the cheaper can of fish regardless of dolphin status (Aside, dolphin friendly tuna is a scam, don’t believe it.)
  - foobarian 3y ago
    And this is also how we got Walmart and Amazon.
- Galacta7 3y ago
  Too late, if you're in the US. The FDA has an allowable level of insects or insect fragments in much of the food you eat. So you're probably getting a decent amount of insects and other things (probably best not to think about) in your food. A ground beef/insect blend only adjusts that ratio upward, and would be more transparent about it. Bon appetite, lol.
  - BobbyJo 3y ago
    The amounts allowed by the FDA are restricted to certain food types, and vastly lower amounts than would be present if it were an intentional additive.
- Shekelphile 3y ago
  The discourse around the subject seems to be overwhelming disgust by the people who would be victimized by it and unending enthusiasm by the rich who would not be forced to eat bugs. I think at this point it's sane to say that if this trend continues the only option left will be violence against the people pushing this (as well as their beneficiaries) onto broader society, if government will not step in to stop businesses from pursuing this agenda.
  - titzer 3y ago
    Replace "eat bugs" with "verb thing" and you've pretty much described the entire dynamic of class struggle spanning several centuries. The "verb thing" baseline has just shifted as humanity makes some progress.
ohdannyboy 3y ago
I'd wait until some longer term studies come out on the meat. Humans have no tradition of eating them (edit: looks like i was wrong on this point). I'm not conceived it's healthier and I'm totally convinced the people pushing it don't care about us. I'd also like to see the ultra-wealthy social planners eat bugs, at least at the opulent summits where they plan it for our class of people. As long as they're eating steaks it's a bad look (same as them owning yachts, taking a private plane to an event then biking the last two blocks and talking about how private car ownership needs to be abolished).
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  > Humans have no tradition of eating them Bugs are very common food in Asian, African and South American cultures. Edit: I also remember seeing some ant stuff in Mexico. And I’ve read about indigenous cultures in Australia and North America also having insects as part of their food. I’m sure if I look for it, I’ll find something on European cultures as well. Modern food is just a representation of food that got commercialized, but in reality human diet used to be much more varied than we are used to seeing now.
  - ohdannyboy 3y ago
    I wasn't aware of that. Are they similar and eaten as a significant source of protein?
    - darth_avocado 3y ago
      Yes. There’s plenty of YouTube channels exploring this if you’re interested. https://youtu.be/nZ3Zc1DJOgY https://youtu.be/nZ3Zc1DJOgY
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "Humans have no tradition of eating them" Of course they do. Try some survival courses, our ancestors ate everything, they could stomach. Only (or mostly) the western culture stopped doing it for whatever reason. "If you think eating insects is gross, you may be in the cultural minority. Throughout history, people have relished insects as food. Today, many cultures still do." https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/eating-bugs-cultural-cuisine https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/eating-bu...

jplrssn 3y ago

Beef production (as well as meat produced from sheep and goats) is one of the most environmentally costly ways of producing food, because of methane emissions [0]. I don't imagine substituting bugs for grass would make much of a difference there. I myself would quite happily try a bug-derived Beyond Meat burger or similar. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221214-what-is-the-lowest-carbon-protein https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221214-what-is-the-lowe...

Detrytus 3y ago
I thought that this methane emission was easily counteracted by some food additive, was it seaweed? EDIT: yes, it was: https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/case-studies/seaweed-supplements-reducing-methane-emissions.html https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/case-studies/seaweed-suppleme...
- jplrssn 3y ago
  Good point. But there are questions around the long-term safety of seaweed additives. And how many farmers would pay for seaweed while methane is free to emit?
  - Detrytus 3y ago
    Well, you can make it mandatory, the same way some countries require cattle vaccination, and other things. In the end it should be more acceptable to general public than just forbidding them to eat beef. And the seaweed shouldn't be too expensive, after all it is "weed". And with more research they possibly could isolate that one tiny chemical substance from seaweed that does all the work here, and synthesize it, so we can produce it cheaply?
- peterpost2 3y ago
  >easily counteracted No, it's not easy. This requires specific kinds of seaweeds to be effective, the species grows only in warm places(so not close to where we tend to keep cows) and it is not grown in large quantities yet, nor is the impact of doing that known. We are quite some time away from doing this large scale.

darth_avocado 3y ago

Bugs are very common additives to chicken feed in smaller farms. Not sure about commercial operations. As a backyard chicken owner, meal worms are a regular thing I feed to my chickens.

oooyay 3y ago
I keep a compost pile going in my chicken run to supplement the chickens food. They can't survive on only bugs though, there's a lot of minerals they need that come directly from plants. Some people may be surprised to learn that chickens will eat just about anything, including you.

some_random 3y ago

>I wonder if [plants -> bugs -> fish -> human] is more or less efficient than just traditional [plants -> {cows, pigs, sheep, goats}]. Also, the bug protein could be an additive to mostly plant based diets for traditional farm animals. The trick here is that the bugs can (at least at the current scale) be fed using food waste which almost certainly makes it more efficient