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The article capitalizes on a popular foreboding about resource limits with a thrilling "ick" factor, but it's premise is unsubstantial. I once met an ancient J

The article capitalizes on a popular foreboding about resource limits with a thrilling "ick" factor, but it's premise is unsubstantial. I once met an ancient Jewish gentleman who, due to poverty, had been forced to eat lobsters as a youth. In that day they were considered on par with rats as a food source (not to mention they were forbidden by his religious culture) and he had never recovered from the experience, and still considered them revolting. I can relate: if it became popular with the youth of tomorrow to broil rats and serve them at market price, I'd probably never get on board. Like insects, Lobster was once a cheap and common food resource. Money could be made by packing and shipping it of to places where it was exotic and unheard of to the majority of people, and so it's image was specially crafted to make profit. But unlike insects, lobster had the advantage of a fresh market. It was only viewed as the food of impoverished immigrants in port cities where it was common. The vast majority of the market, at least in the USA, considers insects icky to look at our touch, let alone to eat. More substantially, I think any serious study would find that people's eating habits rarely change based on broad, even minded assessment of future resource limits. Current rates of meat consumption are a good example: we know it can't last, but few people change their diet so that their great grandchildren can eat more chicken. I do think insects will be a food source in the future, but that will be because a clever marketer discovers the killer bug that is both exotic and delicious. In general I think it will be a very long and slow process by which everyday insects like crickets become palatable to the status quo.

cgh 12y ago
The article is about cricket flour, not eating whole crickets. Cricket flour products are already on sale in hundreds of stores. The key is to mass produce the flour as right now it's quite expensive. That's what's specifically addressed in the article, not the issue of convincing people to eat it in the first place.
- robbrown451 12y ago
  It has the "ick" factor regardless of whether ground up or not. And the article does talk about flavor, etc.
- notahacker 12y ago
  Whether the challenge of mass producing cricket flour is actually worth solving of course, depends on demand for the product extending beyond novelty value, which is part of the problem with edible algae, also widely available in stores and rather simpler to produce and yet far from being a mainstream foodstuff. As far as I'm aware use of cricket flour is also virtually nonexistent amongst the many cultures that consider whole insects a delicacy. On the basis of both of the above I'd hazard that cricket flour is unlikely to become a significant staple food even if niche businesses perfect the art of cricket-farming.
- 7952 12y ago
  I understand that Cricket Powder contains protein and other nutrients. But is it more efficient than just using plants as a source of those things? Surely the choice is not steak vs crickets but crickets vs soya?
  - cgh 12y ago
    Plant protein is subpar because of its amino acid profiles. I'm not being anti-vegetarian here, it's the basic truth and it's why strength athletes etc. don't count plants as significant sources of protein. Basically, bugs are better, comparable to any other animal source.
ams6110 12y ago
Rats, raised in clean conditions and fed properly, would probably make a good food source. People eat rabbits and squirrels, there's really not much difference.
- tehchromic 12y ago
  True, but what you consider clean conditions is relative. City streets are dirty, but so is the bottom of the ocean! where sharks vacate and whales rot to bits and all kinds of sediment and detritus gathers: there's your market price lobster's "clean conditions and properly fed". So would you knowingly eat a rat off the city streets? Well, I probably would too in fact, even if the thought truly disgusts me :}
  - fixxer 12y ago
    It is all pretty disgusting, be it bottom-feeders or beef in the lot. Our protein sources are generally grown and nourished in close vicinity to massive amounts of faeces. At least lobster is free range. I think the idea of producing cricket meal as a protein supplement/food additive is pretty novel, but it will be a long time before I cook with it directly.
anigbrowl 12y ago
There are other cultures where lobster is available domestically but without the negative connotations; I have good memories of eating fresh-caught lobster for dinner in a tiny fishing village in Ireland, where people had been enjoying them along with crab for many generations. Shellfish are considered unclean in Judaism, but you shouldn't generalize from that to assume every other culture views them the same way, as with pork, the religious prohibition probably originated with the elevated risk of food-borne illness that was exacerbated by the climate.
- rayiner 12y ago
  In Bangladesh, it's always been considered a treat, though one affordable to villagers before the export market became a thing.
aaron695 12y ago
> I can relate: if it became popular with the youth of tomorrow to broil rats and serve them at market price, I'd probably never get on board. Then you will become like most old people. New things like interracial marriage, gay marriage, trying to not use a lot of resources(baby boomers not pre war), computers etc frighten old people. And you also will get older and die, like they will before you. But while you are dying off the youth will embrace the new and the better. I just feel sad you have pin holed yourself already to not even want to try. And although I don't like boiled meats, BBQ rat tastes fine. [Edit] broil != boil I see from Google :)
- coldtea 12y ago
  >But while you are dying off the youth will embrace the new and the better. Yeah, ain't that a shame? Those old belle-epoque people getting older, while the younger generations embraced Word War I and then the Nazi party. Or those people that got older after the sixties, were the younger generations embraced Raeganism... Sarcasm aside, new is not necessarily better. It's not even a strong correlation. There is new stuff that can be better than old, and old stuff that can be better than new in equal measure. Only technology monotonically progresses to better and more advanced things. Morals and customs (and aesthetics) can and do change either way.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    >new is not necessarily better Sure, sure, but getting rid of prejudices that are objectively nonsense is better. Things like which foods are delicacies and which are icky that are not at all based on nutrition, sanitation, etc.
philwelch 12y ago
They used to have laws limiting how many times a week you could feed lobster to prisoners because it was considered inhumane.

cgh 12y ago

The article is about cricket flour, not eating whole crickets. Cricket flour products are already on sale in hundreds of stores. The key is to mass produce the flour as right now it's quite expensive. That's what's specifically addressed in the article, not the issue of convincing people to eat it in the first place.

robbrown451 12y ago
It has the "ick" factor regardless of whether ground up or not. And the article does talk about flavor, etc.
notahacker 12y ago
Whether the challenge of mass producing cricket flour is actually worth solving of course, depends on demand for the product extending beyond novelty value, which is part of the problem with edible algae, also widely available in stores and rather simpler to produce and yet far from being a mainstream foodstuff. As far as I'm aware use of cricket flour is also virtually nonexistent amongst the many cultures that consider whole insects a delicacy. On the basis of both of the above I'd hazard that cricket flour is unlikely to become a significant staple food even if niche businesses perfect the art of cricket-farming.
7952 12y ago
I understand that Cricket Powder contains protein and other nutrients. But is it more efficient than just using plants as a source of those things? Surely the choice is not steak vs crickets but crickets vs soya?
- cgh 12y ago
  Plant protein is subpar because of its amino acid profiles. I'm not being anti-vegetarian here, it's the basic truth and it's why strength athletes etc. don't count plants as significant sources of protein. Basically, bugs are better, comparable to any other animal source.

ams6110 12y ago

Rats, raised in clean conditions and fed properly, would probably make a good food source. People eat rabbits and squirrels, there's really not much difference.

tehchromic 12y ago
True, but what you consider clean conditions is relative. City streets are dirty, but so is the bottom of the ocean! where sharks vacate and whales rot to bits and all kinds of sediment and detritus gathers: there's your market price lobster's "clean conditions and properly fed". So would you knowingly eat a rat off the city streets? Well, I probably would too in fact, even if the thought truly disgusts me :}
- fixxer 12y ago
  It is all pretty disgusting, be it bottom-feeders or beef in the lot. Our protein sources are generally grown and nourished in close vicinity to massive amounts of faeces. At least lobster is free range. I think the idea of producing cricket meal as a protein supplement/food additive is pretty novel, but it will be a long time before I cook with it directly.

anigbrowl 12y ago

There are other cultures where lobster is available domestically but without the negative connotations; I have good memories of eating fresh-caught lobster for dinner in a tiny fishing village in Ireland, where people had been enjoying them along with crab for many generations. Shellfish are considered unclean in Judaism, but you shouldn't generalize from that to assume every other culture views them the same way, as with pork, the religious prohibition probably originated with the elevated risk of food-borne illness that was exacerbated by the climate.

rayiner 12y ago
In Bangladesh, it's always been considered a treat, though one affordable to villagers before the export market became a thing.

aaron695 12y ago

> I can relate: if it became popular with the youth of tomorrow to broil rats and serve them at market price, I'd probably never get on board. Then you will become like most old people. New things like interracial marriage, gay marriage, trying to not use a lot of resources(baby boomers not pre war), computers etc frighten old people. And you also will get older and die, like they will before you. But while you are dying off the youth will embrace the new and the better. I just feel sad you have pin holed yourself already to not even want to try. And although I don't like boiled meats, BBQ rat tastes fine. [Edit] broil != boil I see from Google :)

coldtea 12y ago
>But while you are dying off the youth will embrace the new and the better. Yeah, ain't that a shame? Those old belle-epoque people getting older, while the younger generations embraced Word War I and then the Nazi party. Or those people that got older after the sixties, were the younger generations embraced Raeganism... Sarcasm aside, new is not necessarily better. It's not even a strong correlation. There is new stuff that can be better than old, and old stuff that can be better than new in equal measure. Only technology monotonically progresses to better and more advanced things. Morals and customs (and aesthetics) can and do change either way.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  >new is not necessarily better Sure, sure, but getting rid of prejudices that are objectively nonsense is better. Things like which foods are delicacies and which are icky that are not at all based on nutrition, sanitation, etc.

philwelch 12y ago

They used to have laws limiting how many times a week you could feed lobster to prisoners because it was considered inhumane.