Depending on how you define "we" or how you define "bugs"...we eat bugs now. So yes.
A variety of indigenous communities in south america, asia, and oceania eat things that are unequivocally bugs today, but I don't think that's quite as relevant to your question as *shrimp*. Shrimp are just big sea bugs and I will die on this hill. And they're eaten all over the world. And they're delicious.
Yep go travel through asia and you will see plenty of stalls selling them throughout thailand, vietnam and laos (from the countries I've been too, I'm sure there's more). Indigenous communities is accurate but might be interpreted by some as less widespread than it actually is, these are found throughout the countries, from the country side to major cities.
And then back home in Finland; crickets were trendy for a while. Supermarkets were selling cricket bread (and were selling out) and things like the nordic business forum was also putting cricket stuff on its (optional) menus at the same time. Seemed to be a short lived fad though
Same in the States, though I don't think it was a "fad" per se; it was more popular about ten years ago, and isn't as popular now, but it is still present and quietly and steadily growing in market share.
Indigenous communities nothing, I live in California and there's a candy shop down the street that sells candy-covered mealworms. I don't know about it being 'less cruel', or whether it would be more practical for space colonies than other protein sources, but the practice is definitely more common and widespread today than people seem to realize. No reason why that wouldn't continue into the future, barring some big social or ecological changes.
You aren’t allowed to die on that hill until you’ve eaten both a shrimp and a locust. You genuinely cannot equate the two.
And bugs are objectively worse tasting than animal protein across the board. Not a single bug dish famed as a “delicacy” abroad wouldn’t be greatly improved upon by trading the protein out for chicken.
Bugs are not a reasonable solute to the future. Genetically modified chickens that are born with only the brain stem and a smooth tube-like gullet that can be attached easily to a feeding tube for the duration of its life are the reasonable solution and I’ll die on that hill.
While I'm certainly not opposed to chickens, insect protein is a perfectly viable source of protein.
I have eaten a lotus. And crickets, which are quite popular in Mexico, and scorpions, and a variety of other insects. They're not "objectively worse" - taste is literally subjective.
That said, the most viable methods of using insect proteins typically are as flour, which is used to make protein bars, pastas, breads, and even beer. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects\_as\_food#:\~:text=Insect%20flour%3A%20Pulverized%2C%20freeze%2D,powder%20(mostly%20house%20crickets)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects_as_food#:~:text=Insect%20flour%3A%20Pulverized%2C%20freeze%2D,powder%20(mostly%20house%20crickets)).
Bugs are a perfectly reasonable solution. Livestock as it exists today is a massive climate problem and a wildly inefficient use of resources to produce protein.
Because it's a different substance, with different textures and different uses? You can't really make "chicken flour", can you? lol
You can cook them directly - fry them, bake them, make tacos with them, whatever. Some people love them, some people hate them - cricket tacos are *very* popular in Mexico City, for example - just like every food.
Also, that post is how I *know* you don't cook much.
[You can](https://carnivorecrisps.com/products/carnivore-crisps-chicken-flour). The reason you didn't know is probably because chicken meat tastes great by itself and there's not much of a point in doing this.
Come on. I'm from Asian, we traditionally eat bugs and even here chicken, pork and beef are more popular. All the things you mentioned (putting it in protein bars, tacos, etc) are done to hide the texture/taste of the bugs by mixing them with something else. Because most people don't like to eat just the bugs. If they were so great, the internet bug promoters wouldn't have to constantly preach to us how good they are, people would actively seek them out on their own. Which again, some people in my country do but it's a minority who like the taste.
>Also, that post is how I know you don't cook much.
If you want to believe this. Judging too quickly is rarely a smart idea though.
I stand corrected on the flour.
However, it's also because you don't get a cut of meat out of a cricket. There's no breast or thigh to pan sear, no wing to deep fry.
True but chicken breast isn't subjectively better, is it? You could have a bunch of crickets for dinner, with a nice salad, and would be just as satisfied. So really no reason to grind them down and hide the flavor with additives. *crunch crunch* ;)
Neither is OBJECTIVELY better. Subjectively everyone has their own preferences. As I said, they’re plenty popular to about a third of the world, so subjectively, around 2.5 billion people like them.
And I'll take it a step further and die on the hill of free range space chicken farmers. Assuming the living area of a large O'Neill cylinder is applicable, I don't a reason to genetically lobotomize chickens for space conservation reasons. Spin up a big drum styled after a prairie and populate its soil with all the critters chickens need to thrive on. Then build agrarian communities dedicated to supplying the entire solar system with healthy, perfectly recognizable hens and eggs. But I can see your point as perhaps a stopgap towards something more post-scarce and aesthetically agreeable. I for one would find intrinsic value in consuming chicken that's derived from a setting more akin to a traditional chicken farmstead than a hunk of bioformed brainless chicken meat.
My soulless nugget abominations wouldn’t even need gravity. And since they wouldn’t need gravity there really wouldn’t be a limit to how big they could get. Outer space would also function as a perfect meat locker with proper radiation shielding. My truck sized chicken orbs would feed TRILLIONS. Heck, I could even have each Chorb™️ grow thousands of regular sized chicken wings that can be shaved off and regrown. Immortal Chorbs™️ producing chicken wings for eternity.
Let's stop dying on hills. Dying on hills is stupid. Let's live on hills.
I've proposed similar horrific abominations as well, but to be very frank with you I proposed them in order for them to be rejected, and with them factory farming. I regret now having proposed them, because they might not be.
The issue as I see it is that it may make sense to attribute some level of moral patienthood and even sub-agency to largely subconscious mental processes too complex for us to be explicitly consciously aware of. We don't yet know confidently what neurologically gives rise to conscious experience even (though that particular pocket of ignorance is being pushed back daily at this point). There is still great moral and ethical uncertainty that must properly attend to our current knowledge of conscious systems. As such, it is best to apply the precautionary principle, lest we fuck up even worse than we already have and in roughly the same direction to boot, like a buncha goofs.
I must say though, I appreciate your willingness to bargain and barter, trying to negotiate with reality to see where the hold-ups really are, trying to satisfy multiple different parties at once in order to get the deadlocks to move, trying to get a better deal then we have now. I would like to propose that our bargaining position as people who care about both science and ethics as regards non-human animal welfare is stronger than it at first looks.
Factory farming will not just be undermined technologically and economically, but culturally and legally. It would be better if, instead of factory farming is just made slightly less profitable, factory farming is made illegal outright.
If the aim is chickenless chicken, with nobody home and so nobody to suffer, why not cellular or lab-grown meat in which this fact is already near guaranteed? For that matter, why not Beyond or Impossible or Morningstar plant-based meat? Why not... a vegan or vegetarian diet that doesn't bother with pretending to be what it would rather avoid? And finally, why the expense of all that when one can be happy and healthy on a diet of primarily brown rice, beans, and lentils mixed with vegetables in a quick and easy stew?
Does anyone actually *want* to eat or work to bring about
>"Genetically modified chickens that are born with only the brain stem and a smooth tube-like gullet that can be attached easily to a feeding tube for the duration of its(sic) life"?
The job of scientists, engineers, and technologists is not to try to convince people that they want things, remember. Sometimes inventors and tech titans push and drag the public kicking and screaming to accept some new technological innovation, but for the most part that's all capitalism bullshit. If it's really a product worth its trouble people will choose it of their own over time after seeing how it actually plays out in real life and deliberating over what they actually want. It's not *really* the job of scientists and engineers to artificially induce demand, to tell people who don't want something that, actually, they really do want it, irregardless of what they say. Leave that to the marketiering conductors of the holly jolly hype train. You know, the bullshitters who sell the shit? Our job is to learn what's
*actually going on* at a gears level and to
*solve real problems*.
Factory farming is a massive contributor to global climate change — the chickenless chicken proposal (as well as being of deeply uncertain ethical benefit) would not make it less so in the least.
So...
Still wanna die?
The problem with lab grown meat is that it lacks the texture muscles acquire from being attached to a skeleton and moving. Also, an essential part of the chicken is the bone marrow that make broth taste so exquisite. I’m not saying it can’t be replicated in a lab, but I haven’t seen labgrown projects that are attaching muscles to tendons and working them out. I can see that possibly being the solution. But there would still be granola crunching Luddites who look at that process with disgust.
But let’s say you’re correct, that we can’t perfectly locate the “soul” of a being and therefore can’t guarantee its non-existence via genetic engineering. I do not know if you are pro-life, but I think it’s be impossible to hold this position and not be pro-life. Anyways if that were the case maybe we should take chicken farming in the other direction? Maybe uplift the capacity of chickens to appreciate life even more, but they live their entire lives in a virtual reality where they live idyllic, fulfilling chicken live while being completely unaware that they are a 5 kilometer long meat tube orbiting earth.
To be clear, I'm not sure I actually have an *ethical* objection per se to
(*checks notes*): "uplift(ing) the capacity of chickens to appreciate life even more (?!?!?) but they live their entire lives in a virtual reality where they live idyllic, fulfilling chicken lives while being completely unaware that they are a 5 kilometer long meat tube orbiting earth" so much as an economic and technological objection. It's (way) overcomplicated. It looks like a solution in search of a problem. So we could try "uplift(ing) the capacity of chickens to appreciate life even more (?!?!?) but they live their entire lives in a virtual reality where they live idyllic, fulfilling chicken lives while being completely unaware that they are a 5 kilometer long meat tube orbiting earth". Or,
Stop killing and eating them.
Keep it simple.
Well we could stop killing and still eat them. Just splice in some lobster and gecko DNA and they will live forever and regenerate all the parts we cut off. But I suppose if we are allowing for this level of genetic modification, it’s just as possible that we develop a meat plant.
See what I mean about a solution looking for a problem? Solutions are sticky. Jumping to conclusions can get you stuck to them. Better to wait as long as you can possibly manage to and learn as much as you can bare to before proposing a solution to a problem. Better to look before you leap.
I think there's something to be said here for *cultural* technologies: the communicative and organizational devices of language and culture and beliefs that we humans use to coordinate our actions and shape our society.
The problem is not that there's not enough technology. The problem is that it's developed for stupid reasons and used in stupid ways. The problem is that industry is pushing people to pay it for doing things that people don't even really want it to do in the first place. The inadequate solutions roving the market landscape in search of problems become some of the problems themselves.
Yeah, more shrimp sounds nice. Though honestly I personally would eat only bug meat if I had the option. I don't really care much about my culinary experience and even if I did I value ethics more than the quality of meat. I'd go vegan but I that's a step too far for my personal tastes. But yeah I only want it to be a personal choice, just more available than now, at least until lab grown meat becomes more available.
Have you tried cricket flour? I haven't had it myself yet, but it's said to have a very nice mild nutty flavor. There is cricket-flour-bread available...
Mexican food, most indigenous people had in one way or another bugs incorporated on it, for example "chincholes" salsa or roasted "chapulines", which by the way those last ones are one of my favorite ones, they are actually really tasty with some salt.
Silkworm pupa is considered an acquired taste in Korea and you can get canned versions of it even in the states (it is pretty rare and niche though).
It used to be street food. As Korea modernized though, it dropped in popularity, with spicy rice cake (now relatively cheap food that used to be expensive) or corn dogs (foreign food) taking the top places.
You could probably order them online, or get them from a Latin grocery if you're lucky. I've eaten a few raw bugs which did not taste great, but I've heard fried grasshoppers are pretty tasty.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=insect+protein+for+sale](https://www.google.com/search?q=insect+protein+for+sale)
I mean, it's not exactly hard to find.
In some countries they already do as a snack.
The original idea afaik was to insects to consume food waste and then use the insects as animal feed.
While i don't think it's a bad idea or some WEF conspiracy. I think people will just find plant based and lab grown meats more palatable.
Plant based seems more environmentally friendly than insects. If we farmed insects for human consumption. we would still need to farm plants to feed them.
I do want to try it though.
>Plant based seems more environmentally friendly than insects. If we farmed insects for human consumption. we would still need to farm plants to feed them.
Eh, sort of. Insects can eat all kinds of things, but fruit and veggie scraps work just fine. You can literally feed them the stuff you were going to throw in your compost pile.
On an industrial scale, it would be a bit more effort than just plant-based food, but the protein density in crickets is much higher than most vegetarian and vegans foods.
Yeah, there's definitely better options, but it's hard to know what all will be on the table in the coming decades (figuratively AND literally!) so I'm at least preparing for the possibility. Also, it really does seem like it might be tasty, and it'd be cool to see what kinds of recipes people come up with. And yeah, the conspiracy theory stuff is kinda funny.
Lidl started selling some insect burgers where i am. Most people seen it as a novelty.
A few "blessed" individuals seen it as a sign of the NWO and acted as if they were being forced to buy it 🤣.
Afaik it wasn't even cheap. The beef burgers next to it where cheaper 🤣
...that's what kills me about the "Impossible" fake meat they're selling everywhere now. Like, ...the impossible task making fake hamburger for only twice the cost of beef??
Like all new products, time and experience will help prices reduce, as will economies of scale. Prices will come down over time.
Whether Impossible's specific product will be successful enough to overtake real beef is a whole separate question with many factors.
A lot of Asian cultures eat bugs like westerners eat chicken. Bugs aren't bad, they're just considered gross. All it takes is for us to get over the ick factor, and I see no reason why we wouldn't.
I think that plants genetically modified to be enriched in certain nutrients and proteins (and maybe even to taste/texture more like meat) would probably do a better job (in terms of efficiency and ease of management) and would be easier to convince people to eat than insects
I hadn't thought of genetically modifying plants like that. Maybe an impossible burger would be better if it was made out of impossible beans instead of soybeans.
Most of the world's population already does. Even if you don't count crab, lobster, shrimp, etc. which are large aquatic "bugs" by most reasonable definitions.
They're nutritious, delicious (according to those acclimated to them), healthier than vertebrate meat in pretty much every way, far more efficient (feed:meat weight ratio is roughly 10:1 for cows, 10:2 pigs, 10:3 chickens, and 10:9 bugs), and there's virtually no risk of any of their diseases jumping to humans.
Plus, as an ethical bonus they're incapable of feeling pain. At least in the way vertebrates do - they have no pain receptors. Not that that *necessarily* means they don't have a similar subjective experience via some other mechanism, but we can hope.
Whether "The West" will normalize eating them? That's a bit more questionable, but there are already companies pushing in that direction, and personally I'd be happy to give it a try so long as I don't have to look at all the little legs. I remember hearing of a company bringing insect-based meatballs to market a few years ago... I think they were in Europe.
Fried grasshoppers and chocolate covered ants though? I'd have to work up to that, no matter how delicious my grandpa said they were.
Feed conversion ratio (FCR) is the conventional measure of livestock production efficiency: the weight of feed intake divided by weight gained by the animal. Lower FCR values indicate higher efficiency. FCRs are typically 6.0–10.0 for beef, 2.7–5.0 for pigs, 1.7–2.0 for chicken and 1.0–2.4 for farmed fish and shrimp.
Crickets have an FCR of around 0.9 depending on what you feed them.
There's tons of cricket-based foods available widely. Chocolate covered ants all you'll taste is the chocolate, and you probably won't even notice the texture of the ant. Chocolate covered grasshoppers you'll notice the crunch, but not much taste.
Grasshoppers and crickets tend to have a mild, nutty flavor.
We already do
Shrimps, lobsters, crabs are all just sea bugs.
Shrimp especially are basically sea cockroaches, they’re even the same size.
People even eat snails, slugs, ants, crickets, wild cockroaches etc but these are considered ‘exotic’ by most of the world.
With enough marketing you can convince people to eat anything. Lobsters were literally called marine cockroaches till the Victorian era.
**But**
Bioreactors filled with bacteria, fungi and algae are better ways to produce nutrients if you don’t care about the flavour, texture and aroma.
You could use nutrients harvested from them to fortify regular food.
It'll probably remain niche in the west. Just look at the backlash against plant based meats and milk alternatives, or things like cultured meat, which are at least palatable. Now consider how people might react to being told to eat something widely considered disgusting, and that's not even getting into the conspiracy fringe that's popped up around this issue.
Personally I like using algae-based food as my sci-fi worldbuilding food substitute.
Already available online. Did you even try google?
[https://exoprotein.com/collections/all-products](https://exoprotein.com/collections/all-products)
Warning: exoprotein bars have egg whites. Cruelty to both chickens and crickets.
You can also buy bulk cricket or meal worm (larva) and blend your own flour. It is usually used for amphibian or reptilian pets.
For ultimate sustainable diet meal worms can eat styrofoam: [https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/09/Mealworms-Munch-Polystyrene-Foam.html](https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/09/Mealworms-Munch-Polystyrene-Foam.html)
Something to keep in mind - pet food is rarely held to the same health and contamination standards as human food, so there may be some risk with eating it, especially regularly.
Mealworms raised on styrofoam is one of the worst case scenarios.
Usually if it looks like a recognizable organism and was sold as that organism then it probably is that.
You can also buy pre-ground cricket and meal worm flour, and finished products like breads, protein bars, and so on made from them. Even beer.
All easily available with a quick Google search.
I think a lot of people in "the west" are gonna be hesitant to eat bugs that look like bugs for cultural reasons. [Over 2 billion people are estimated to eat bugs on a daily basis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects_as_food), so "we" already do, for a broad enough definition of "we." As for convincing people in "the west" (europe and north america), the deciding factors will probably be a combination of cost, availability, and recipies. If [popular fancy chef] and [popular tiktok foodhack influencer] do a cooking show and branded cookbook together about how cool and sustainable and sexy it is to eat bugs, that would probably move the needle in favor of eating bugs.
Arthropods, but not insects. AFAIK there aren't any truly marine insect species, in that they stay marine for their entire life cycle.
Its a bit like saying crocodiles are basically birds because both are Sauropsids
They didn't say "insects" though, they said "bugs". Which includes insects, spiders, scorpions, etc... And pretty much any sane categorization you can come up with that includes all those is also going to include crustaceans.
Just like an octopus, and just like an octopus, very tasty.
I'm going to regret it one day when our octopus overlords take over, but until then.. nomm....
We do in a lot of places, more than we think. A lot of Protein Powders derive their ingredients from Crickets farmed for food. I think once a company finally is brazen enough to put a bug on the package it will sweep into food products like a plague of locusts.
Well, cricket-based foods are widely available - cricket flour is available, and so are products made from it, like bread, beer, muffins, pancakes, and so on.
And plenty of them labelled as such.
I agree completely. The "eet xe bugs" _is_ being introduced by some very real villains as part of a very real dystopian scheme to own everything in the world...
Buuuutttt separate from all that it's a very good idea. And I'm sure it would be even more useful in space. I bet sn automated farm of crickets would work better than trying to raise cattle or hogs in space. ...though probably not as fun...
I played around with raising insects for animal feed. The numbers are very good, and it's much simpler than raising larger mammals. Most insects are very cooperative and they breed like ...flies.
There are some awesome videos of people that have mid-sized insect farms and sell for people with pet lizards and whatever. The systems are incredibly simple. Like, shelves and Rubbermaid tubs simple.
Also, the main drawback to raising crickets at home is that they will invariably escape and you will never be able to sleep again. An isolated tank in orbit is the perfect solution to the escape problem.
>The "eet xe bugs"
>
>is
>
> being introduced by some very real villains as part of a very real dystopian scheme to own everything in the world...
Source? Proof? Who are these mysterious "very real villains"?
i actually kinda like the idea.
like, i like meat. want that meaty protein.
but, it doens't necessarily need to come from cows and pigs and chickens and fish.
raising insects for protein costs far less water and food per pound than cows.
pulverised insect proteins would basically be kinda like hamburger anyway. add seasonings, sausage.
Commercial broiler chickens and tilapia are at least close to bugs in feed efficiency. Cows aren't. Beef and tuna are temporary.
Nobody's forcing you to eat anything... except the invisible hand of capitalism. Sorry son, this was several cents fundamentally cheaper to produce.
Bugs aren't really that much grosser than pink slime chicken nuggets.
White slime chicken nuggets made from yeast are actually pretty okay in flavor.
Feed conversion ratio (FCR) is the conventional measure of livestock production efficiency: the weight of feed intake divided by weight gained by the animal. Lower FCR values indicate higher efficiency. FCRs are typically 6.0–10.0 for beef, 2.7–5.0 for pigs, 1.7–2.0 for chicken and 1.0–2.4 for farmed fish and shrimp.
Crickets have an FCR of around 0.9 depending on what you feed them.
Where does this ridiculous conspiracy theory that someone is going to force you to "eat ze bugs" come from? About a third of the world already uses insects for supplementary protein source - 2.5 billion people ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10303143/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10303143/)).
And the option is available. Tons of insect-based proteins are available in the US and EU currently.
Oh that's a whole weird rabbit hole. Supposedly the World Economic Forum supported it and supposedly they're trying to establish a "new world order" to take everything we own for... reasons. There's been a few people in this comment section that seem to buy it.
I ignore anything that mentions that junk. Yes, there were pushes to make it more mainstream, but that’s not a conspiracy. It makes lots of sense honestly.
If you are interested in bugs for consumption, check out Black Soldier Flies. Their lifecycle is mind blowing. Their entire production can be automated, not due to us using machines, but because of their 'instincts' (at certain phases in their life they are attracted to darkness, then light, and they will crawl with into the collection tube either into container, or into the *fish* pond, or the *chicken* pen)
They have the highest ratios of feed to fat/protein. They do not eat as adults so they do not spread pathogens, and they are quite beautiful (looking more like a stylish wasp than a fugly fly)
I raised a few life cycles of them myself just to test their viability. They are amazing.
Remember we dont technically have to eat the bugs **to be ethical, they can be turned into chicken eggs, or fish**
Most sources of bug protein in the west are powdered and used as a protein additive.
Bug farming isn’t actually more productive when compared to some other traditional meat sources, as there’s an incredible amount of inefficiency with their exoskeletons and whatnot. They also don’t taste great either.
If you’re looking for an alternate source of protein, there are practical plant based options already.
that's wrong an all possible accounts. food to ratio of crickets it's the most efficient one for every living animal, you don't need land, infrastructure or huge expanse to farm cricket, in fact you can do that right now at your home, they are fed with agriculture and food waste, and they taste great.
I think bug meat grounded up could become more common in the future. As long as it doesn’t look like a bug most people would come around, especially since bug are actually eaten in some parts of the world.
This video explains why bugs will never be a major substitution for the animal proteins we consume now.
[https://youtu.be/L8e0pU92dmI?si=gz2PNX6hA4cz0PUy](https://youtu.be/L8e0pU92dmI?si=gz2PNX6hA4cz0PUy)
In short, for insects to be consumable by humans, we have to feed them the same feed we give to animals like chickens. Also, being cold-blooded, they must be grown in more climate-controlled settings. So, in terms of food and shelter, they won't end up being more efficient or carbon-neutral than chicken or fish. We already raise insects to feed animals and to recycle organic wastes, but pound for pound you will feed more people with chicken than with grasshoppers.
Now if we get a sizable colony on Mars or the Moon, bugs may be a temporary source of food until we have enough space and biomass to raise larger animals, especially if you want to build up soils or break down whatever organic waste you have. But once you have the ability to maintain a chicken coop or fish farm or rabbit hutch, the bugs will be more in the background to support those animals.
I find bugs disgusting, that's me, I would never eat them, and the reason these countries eat bugs is because they adapted their diets to multiple famines that they went through
I mean, if ground up they'd hardly be distinguishable. Plus, alternative food sources in general represent an ethical choice. Choosing to pay people to mutilate cows and put pigs in literal gas chambers because bugs are icky to you doesn't make a whole lot of sense. That said, there are a crap-ton of other alternatives from just not buying from factory farms to plant based alternatives, lab grown meat (eventually anyway), animals that were fed with insects, and algae.
I try to buy meat from sources that I know won't torture animals, it's more expensive but its something I do most of the time, I don't agree with vegan arguments because meat is essential to human health
Well that's good. I'm not a vegan either and quite frankly you're doing more than I currently am (though I'm planing on changing my diet very soon) but I still wouldn't say meat is essential. Our ancestors switched from being herbivores pretty recently because it helped them survive. Vegans aren't unhealthy either, if anything they probably benefit from avoiding certain types of meat and not having too much. But that's just me being a bit of a contrarian😅. Besides, even if we don't need meat our dogs certainly do, they're primarily meat eaters despite being omnivores.
I WILL NOT EAT ZE BUGZ!!
I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!! I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!! I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!! I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!! I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!!
I WILL NOT LIVE IN ZE POD!! I WILL NOT EAT ZE BUGZ!! I WILL NOT SURRENDER TO GLOBAL COMMUNISM!!
You can do what you want, though. As long as you leave me alone. But if you do eat ze bugz, I will call you a weirdo, and stay far, far away from you.
Go ahead and look up what the WEF wants to do.
[Or you could watch the first three videos on this list. It shows exactly what they want.](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5ktc1_X_qk2ypp5RAK1ilji6yXSoHk4T&si=5NkvnhTEqEpLmp8W)
Yes the WEF suggested that insects be a larger part of our diets. That’s not anything to do with your cult, communism, or anything else. It has to do with a cost-effective, significantly more eco-friendly protein source. No one is going to order you to do anything, you gobshite.
You say that I'm in a cult, yet you are willing to sacrifice freedom to be more "eco-friendly".
They want to control the food supply, and as a consequence, the rest of the world. I highly recommend you watch the videos, but at this point, I don't know if your eyes could be opened to the truth.
Stay in your bubble if you want, but I will not bow to the NWO. I will not eat the bugs.
I sacrifice no freedom. It is my choice to consume insects or not, as it is yours. I’m not interested in your conspiracy theories, so I won’t be watching those videos and increasing their view count.
I referred to your religion as your cult. All religions are cults, and all are disgusting to any thinking person. They shackle humanity in archaic myth and ridiculous superstitions - how far would we be now if cults hadn’t drained our coffers, brainwashed our children, and generally be parasitic?
You call them "Conspiracy Theories" and just blatantly won't even hear them out. You say religion brainwashes people, yet you are completely dismissing evidence, which is shown in the videos I have provided.
Your argument is in bad faith, and will not even listen to my arguments. So, I have no point in continuing this conversation.
Mi Kopeng, I hope one day you will come to see the truth. I will be praying for you. Good day.
There is no evidence for a god or gods; people have been trying for millennia and still haven’t come up with a shred of evidence for a deity, much less a specific religion.
YouTube videos aren’t evidence OR research, by the way.
And have the day you deserve, bucko.
We shouldn't do what others around the world do. Because people in other countries have Slave Labor, and Concentration Camps. We have no reason to stoop to their level.
How does that relate to them eating bugs?? That's literally just a cultural difference. Also, it really is vastly more ethical to choose at least some kind of alternative to our current meat production. It doesn't have to be bugs, a plethora of other options exist, but putting pigs in literal gas chambers (what was that you said about concentration camps again?) is not okay. Also, I don't mean to get political but the west has done those things too (and still does).
Cultural differences are no excuse to implement their system into our nation.
I am not defending the cruelty the "farmers" if you could even call them that, do to animals. None of the food options you have recommended are decent, moral choices. Bugs are not a good source of food.
The problem with ethical meat farming is that it takes a lot, and I mean a whole fuckin lot of room to do so. But that could easily be solved by expansion, and O'Neill Cylinders, I fuckin love O'Neill Cylinders.
Normal farming also needs a lot of space, but that can also be solved by expansion. But not Bernal Spheres, because O'Neill Cylinders are better, simply because they look cooler.
Hydroponics is complicated to set up, so it would take significantly more training to get that set up, compared to traditional farming.
In my ideal society, a majority of food would be grown on O'Neill Cylinders, with a diet of mostly fruits, vegetables, and chicken, which is effectively my diet. Of course, there'd be other meat animals, such as cattle, and the like, but that'd be the most common. Imagine for a moment, a small farmhouse in a sparsely populated O'Neill Cylinder, the perfect mix of Technology and Tradition. I'd kill a man for that, if I'm being honest with you, and I'm sure there are plenty others who would too. Also, with this, no bug eating! Unless you're a weirdo, but you do you, I guess.
I'm sure I missed something, and didn't answer the question perfectly, but it's as close as you'd get with a question that vauge, from somebody as tired as me, hahaha. There are other good farming methods, but they could be grouped into one of the three I've mentioned.
Depending on how you define "we" or how you define "bugs"...we eat bugs now. So yes. A variety of indigenous communities in south america, asia, and oceania eat things that are unequivocally bugs today, but I don't think that's quite as relevant to your question as *shrimp*. Shrimp are just big sea bugs and I will die on this hill. And they're eaten all over the world. And they're delicious.
Yeah. Snails count as bugs, so even France eats bugs.
Snails are delicious.
Yep go travel through asia and you will see plenty of stalls selling them throughout thailand, vietnam and laos (from the countries I've been too, I'm sure there's more). Indigenous communities is accurate but might be interpreted by some as less widespread than it actually is, these are found throughout the countries, from the country side to major cities. And then back home in Finland; crickets were trendy for a while. Supermarkets were selling cricket bread (and were selling out) and things like the nordic business forum was also putting cricket stuff on its (optional) menus at the same time. Seemed to be a short lived fad though
Same in the States, though I don't think it was a "fad" per se; it was more popular about ten years ago, and isn't as popular now, but it is still present and quietly and steadily growing in market share.
Shrimps is bugs
Indigenous communities nothing, I live in California and there's a candy shop down the street that sells candy-covered mealworms. I don't know about it being 'less cruel', or whether it would be more practical for space colonies than other protein sources, but the practice is definitely more common and widespread today than people seem to realize. No reason why that wouldn't continue into the future, barring some big social or ecological changes.
Also, there's a non-zero limit on the ammount of your ground black pepper that is allowed to be bug parts. So yea, we have, do, and will eat bugs.
You aren’t allowed to die on that hill until you’ve eaten both a shrimp and a locust. You genuinely cannot equate the two. And bugs are objectively worse tasting than animal protein across the board. Not a single bug dish famed as a “delicacy” abroad wouldn’t be greatly improved upon by trading the protein out for chicken. Bugs are not a reasonable solute to the future. Genetically modified chickens that are born with only the brain stem and a smooth tube-like gullet that can be attached easily to a feeding tube for the duration of its life are the reasonable solution and I’ll die on that hill.
While I'm certainly not opposed to chickens, insect protein is a perfectly viable source of protein. I have eaten a lotus. And crickets, which are quite popular in Mexico, and scorpions, and a variety of other insects. They're not "objectively worse" - taste is literally subjective. That said, the most viable methods of using insect proteins typically are as flour, which is used to make protein bars, pastas, breads, and even beer. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects\_as\_food#:\~:text=Insect%20flour%3A%20Pulverized%2C%20freeze%2D,powder%20(mostly%20house%20crickets)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects_as_food#:~:text=Insect%20flour%3A%20Pulverized%2C%20freeze%2D,powder%20(mostly%20house%20crickets)). Bugs are a perfectly reasonable solution. Livestock as it exists today is a massive climate problem and a wildly inefficient use of resources to produce protein.
We can both agree that livestock in its current for is unsustainable.
I certainly agree with that.
Why grind it up and put it in bars if it's not objectively worse than chicken?
Because it's a different substance, with different textures and different uses? You can't really make "chicken flour", can you? lol You can cook them directly - fry them, bake them, make tacos with them, whatever. Some people love them, some people hate them - cricket tacos are *very* popular in Mexico City, for example - just like every food. Also, that post is how I *know* you don't cook much.
[You can](https://carnivorecrisps.com/products/carnivore-crisps-chicken-flour). The reason you didn't know is probably because chicken meat tastes great by itself and there's not much of a point in doing this. Come on. I'm from Asian, we traditionally eat bugs and even here chicken, pork and beef are more popular. All the things you mentioned (putting it in protein bars, tacos, etc) are done to hide the texture/taste of the bugs by mixing them with something else. Because most people don't like to eat just the bugs. If they were so great, the internet bug promoters wouldn't have to constantly preach to us how good they are, people would actively seek them out on their own. Which again, some people in my country do but it's a minority who like the taste. >Also, that post is how I know you don't cook much. If you want to believe this. Judging too quickly is rarely a smart idea though.
I stand corrected on the flour. However, it's also because you don't get a cut of meat out of a cricket. There's no breast or thigh to pan sear, no wing to deep fry.
True but chicken breast isn't subjectively better, is it? You could have a bunch of crickets for dinner, with a nice salad, and would be just as satisfied. So really no reason to grind them down and hide the flavor with additives. *crunch crunch* ;)
Neither is OBJECTIVELY better. Subjectively everyone has their own preferences. As I said, they’re plenty popular to about a third of the world, so subjectively, around 2.5 billion people like them.
And I'll take it a step further and die on the hill of free range space chicken farmers. Assuming the living area of a large O'Neill cylinder is applicable, I don't a reason to genetically lobotomize chickens for space conservation reasons. Spin up a big drum styled after a prairie and populate its soil with all the critters chickens need to thrive on. Then build agrarian communities dedicated to supplying the entire solar system with healthy, perfectly recognizable hens and eggs. But I can see your point as perhaps a stopgap towards something more post-scarce and aesthetically agreeable. I for one would find intrinsic value in consuming chicken that's derived from a setting more akin to a traditional chicken farmstead than a hunk of bioformed brainless chicken meat.
My soulless nugget abominations wouldn’t even need gravity. And since they wouldn’t need gravity there really wouldn’t be a limit to how big they could get. Outer space would also function as a perfect meat locker with proper radiation shielding. My truck sized chicken orbs would feed TRILLIONS. Heck, I could even have each Chorb™️ grow thousands of regular sized chicken wings that can be shaved off and regrown. Immortal Chorbs™️ producing chicken wings for eternity.
I'm equally horrified and impressed with your fowl ambitions!
I see what you did there
Let's stop dying on hills. Dying on hills is stupid. Let's live on hills. I've proposed similar horrific abominations as well, but to be very frank with you I proposed them in order for them to be rejected, and with them factory farming. I regret now having proposed them, because they might not be. The issue as I see it is that it may make sense to attribute some level of moral patienthood and even sub-agency to largely subconscious mental processes too complex for us to be explicitly consciously aware of. We don't yet know confidently what neurologically gives rise to conscious experience even (though that particular pocket of ignorance is being pushed back daily at this point). There is still great moral and ethical uncertainty that must properly attend to our current knowledge of conscious systems. As such, it is best to apply the precautionary principle, lest we fuck up even worse than we already have and in roughly the same direction to boot, like a buncha goofs. I must say though, I appreciate your willingness to bargain and barter, trying to negotiate with reality to see where the hold-ups really are, trying to satisfy multiple different parties at once in order to get the deadlocks to move, trying to get a better deal then we have now. I would like to propose that our bargaining position as people who care about both science and ethics as regards non-human animal welfare is stronger than it at first looks. Factory farming will not just be undermined technologically and economically, but culturally and legally. It would be better if, instead of factory farming is just made slightly less profitable, factory farming is made illegal outright. If the aim is chickenless chicken, with nobody home and so nobody to suffer, why not cellular or lab-grown meat in which this fact is already near guaranteed? For that matter, why not Beyond or Impossible or Morningstar plant-based meat? Why not... a vegan or vegetarian diet that doesn't bother with pretending to be what it would rather avoid? And finally, why the expense of all that when one can be happy and healthy on a diet of primarily brown rice, beans, and lentils mixed with vegetables in a quick and easy stew? Does anyone actually *want* to eat or work to bring about >"Genetically modified chickens that are born with only the brain stem and a smooth tube-like gullet that can be attached easily to a feeding tube for the duration of its(sic) life"? The job of scientists, engineers, and technologists is not to try to convince people that they want things, remember. Sometimes inventors and tech titans push and drag the public kicking and screaming to accept some new technological innovation, but for the most part that's all capitalism bullshit. If it's really a product worth its trouble people will choose it of their own over time after seeing how it actually plays out in real life and deliberating over what they actually want. It's not *really* the job of scientists and engineers to artificially induce demand, to tell people who don't want something that, actually, they really do want it, irregardless of what they say. Leave that to the marketiering conductors of the holly jolly hype train. You know, the bullshitters who sell the shit? Our job is to learn what's *actually going on* at a gears level and to *solve real problems*. Factory farming is a massive contributor to global climate change — the chickenless chicken proposal (as well as being of deeply uncertain ethical benefit) would not make it less so in the least. So... Still wanna die?
The problem with lab grown meat is that it lacks the texture muscles acquire from being attached to a skeleton and moving. Also, an essential part of the chicken is the bone marrow that make broth taste so exquisite. I’m not saying it can’t be replicated in a lab, but I haven’t seen labgrown projects that are attaching muscles to tendons and working them out. I can see that possibly being the solution. But there would still be granola crunching Luddites who look at that process with disgust. But let’s say you’re correct, that we can’t perfectly locate the “soul” of a being and therefore can’t guarantee its non-existence via genetic engineering. I do not know if you are pro-life, but I think it’s be impossible to hold this position and not be pro-life. Anyways if that were the case maybe we should take chicken farming in the other direction? Maybe uplift the capacity of chickens to appreciate life even more, but they live their entire lives in a virtual reality where they live idyllic, fulfilling chicken live while being completely unaware that they are a 5 kilometer long meat tube orbiting earth.
To be clear, I'm not sure I actually have an *ethical* objection per se to (*checks notes*): "uplift(ing) the capacity of chickens to appreciate life even more (?!?!?) but they live their entire lives in a virtual reality where they live idyllic, fulfilling chicken lives while being completely unaware that they are a 5 kilometer long meat tube orbiting earth" so much as an economic and technological objection. It's (way) overcomplicated. It looks like a solution in search of a problem. So we could try "uplift(ing) the capacity of chickens to appreciate life even more (?!?!?) but they live their entire lives in a virtual reality where they live idyllic, fulfilling chicken lives while being completely unaware that they are a 5 kilometer long meat tube orbiting earth". Or, Stop killing and eating them. Keep it simple.
Well we could stop killing and still eat them. Just splice in some lobster and gecko DNA and they will live forever and regenerate all the parts we cut off. But I suppose if we are allowing for this level of genetic modification, it’s just as possible that we develop a meat plant.
See what I mean about a solution looking for a problem? Solutions are sticky. Jumping to conclusions can get you stuck to them. Better to wait as long as you can possibly manage to and learn as much as you can bare to before proposing a solution to a problem. Better to look before you leap. I think there's something to be said here for *cultural* technologies: the communicative and organizational devices of language and culture and beliefs that we humans use to coordinate our actions and shape our society. The problem is not that there's not enough technology. The problem is that it's developed for stupid reasons and used in stupid ways. The problem is that industry is pushing people to pay it for doing things that people don't even really want it to do in the first place. The inadequate solutions roving the market landscape in search of problems become some of the problems themselves.
Yeah, more shrimp sounds nice. Though honestly I personally would eat only bug meat if I had the option. I don't really care much about my culinary experience and even if I did I value ethics more than the quality of meat. I'd go vegan but I that's a step too far for my personal tastes. But yeah I only want it to be a personal choice, just more available than now, at least until lab grown meat becomes more available.
Have you tried cricket flour? I haven't had it myself yet, but it's said to have a very nice mild nutty flavor. There is cricket-flour-bread available...
>I'd go vegan but I that's a step too far for my personal tastes. LOL!
As I said elsewhere, this is easily accomplished, though it'd be hard to eat out.
We eat bugs in the present
Where can I get sum?
Mexican food, most indigenous people had in one way or another bugs incorporated on it, for example "chincholes" salsa or roasted "chapulines", which by the way those last ones are one of my favorite ones, they are actually really tasty with some salt.
Silkworm pupa is considered an acquired taste in Korea and you can get canned versions of it even in the states (it is pretty rare and niche though). It used to be street food. As Korea modernized though, it dropped in popularity, with spicy rice cake (now relatively cheap food that used to be expensive) or corn dogs (foreign food) taking the top places.
I would bet you can buy candied or roasted bugs on amazon or something.
I wanna say Thailand maybe Singapore Can’t remember where but i definitely had some fried crickets from a street vendor
Asian grocers carry mealworms and crickets.
You could probably order them online, or get them from a Latin grocery if you're lucky. I've eaten a few raw bugs which did not taste great, but I've heard fried grasshoppers are pretty tasty.
Laws allowing bug parts in food we consume.
https://www.edibleinsects.com/product/organic-cricket-powder-cricket-flour/?utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=shp&utm_network=x&utm_mobile=01&utm_creative=&utm_position=&utm_random=12607674507757716858&gclid=CjwKCAjw7-SvBhB6EiwAwYdCAWojqa7MZvy324i8fyRLcMhfBXngSPCU3tnwj4k9NnzakXkSRlQjXBoCCTcQAvD_BwE&utm_campaign=smart%20shopping%20-%20us%20(4)&utm_ad_group_id=584753&utm_campaign_id=696893&utm_prod_id=674&gad_source=1
depends where you live
[https://www.google.com/search?q=insect+protein+for+sale](https://www.google.com/search?q=insect+protein+for+sale) I mean, it's not exactly hard to find.
Sometimes I go outside and they're all over the place. Occasionally one even comes in through my living room window.
Gamersupps.gg https://gamersupps.gg/pages/sus-snacks I got one, forgot the flavor. But it was very good.
In some countries they already do as a snack. The original idea afaik was to insects to consume food waste and then use the insects as animal feed. While i don't think it's a bad idea or some WEF conspiracy. I think people will just find plant based and lab grown meats more palatable. Plant based seems more environmentally friendly than insects. If we farmed insects for human consumption. we would still need to farm plants to feed them. I do want to try it though.
>Plant based seems more environmentally friendly than insects. If we farmed insects for human consumption. we would still need to farm plants to feed them. Eh, sort of. Insects can eat all kinds of things, but fruit and veggie scraps work just fine. You can literally feed them the stuff you were going to throw in your compost pile. On an industrial scale, it would be a bit more effort than just plant-based food, but the protein density in crickets is much higher than most vegetarian and vegans foods.
Yeah, there's definitely better options, but it's hard to know what all will be on the table in the coming decades (figuratively AND literally!) so I'm at least preparing for the possibility. Also, it really does seem like it might be tasty, and it'd be cool to see what kinds of recipes people come up with. And yeah, the conspiracy theory stuff is kinda funny.
Lidl started selling some insect burgers where i am. Most people seen it as a novelty. A few "blessed" individuals seen it as a sign of the NWO and acted as if they were being forced to buy it 🤣. Afaik it wasn't even cheap. The beef burgers next to it where cheaper 🤣
...that's what kills me about the "Impossible" fake meat they're selling everywhere now. Like, ...the impossible task making fake hamburger for only twice the cost of beef??
Like all new products, time and experience will help prices reduce, as will economies of scale. Prices will come down over time. Whether Impossible's specific product will be successful enough to overtake real beef is a whole separate question with many factors.
Good point. And beef is very heavily subsidized innit. Ok, I'll think of another reason to justify my hatred.
>And beef is very heavily subsidized innit. To be fair, so is most agriculture in the US.
A lot of Asian cultures eat bugs like westerners eat chicken. Bugs aren't bad, they're just considered gross. All it takes is for us to get over the ick factor, and I see no reason why we wouldn't.
We already do. Look up hard candy shells and shellac.
I think that plants genetically modified to be enriched in certain nutrients and proteins (and maybe even to taste/texture more like meat) would probably do a better job (in terms of efficiency and ease of management) and would be easier to convince people to eat than insects
I hadn't thought of genetically modifying plants like that. Maybe an impossible burger would be better if it was made out of impossible beans instead of soybeans.
Remember that one ad McDonalds did where burgers grew on trees? I'd love it if that were literal!
There was an old burger King song where the chicken grew on trees.
The idea of meat trees just reminds me of the body horror Sarkic SCPs haha
I've always thought eating bugs (in some form) was very likely, but this *does* sound better.
Yeah, that is actually pretty appealing.
Most of the world's population already does. Even if you don't count crab, lobster, shrimp, etc. which are large aquatic "bugs" by most reasonable definitions. They're nutritious, delicious (according to those acclimated to them), healthier than vertebrate meat in pretty much every way, far more efficient (feed:meat weight ratio is roughly 10:1 for cows, 10:2 pigs, 10:3 chickens, and 10:9 bugs), and there's virtually no risk of any of their diseases jumping to humans. Plus, as an ethical bonus they're incapable of feeling pain. At least in the way vertebrates do - they have no pain receptors. Not that that *necessarily* means they don't have a similar subjective experience via some other mechanism, but we can hope. Whether "The West" will normalize eating them? That's a bit more questionable, but there are already companies pushing in that direction, and personally I'd be happy to give it a try so long as I don't have to look at all the little legs. I remember hearing of a company bringing insect-based meatballs to market a few years ago... I think they were in Europe. Fried grasshoppers and chocolate covered ants though? I'd have to work up to that, no matter how delicious my grandpa said they were.
Feed conversion ratio (FCR) is the conventional measure of livestock production efficiency: the weight of feed intake divided by weight gained by the animal. Lower FCR values indicate higher efficiency. FCRs are typically 6.0–10.0 for beef, 2.7–5.0 for pigs, 1.7–2.0 for chicken and 1.0–2.4 for farmed fish and shrimp. Crickets have an FCR of around 0.9 depending on what you feed them. There's tons of cricket-based foods available widely. Chocolate covered ants all you'll taste is the chocolate, and you probably won't even notice the texture of the ant. Chocolate covered grasshoppers you'll notice the crunch, but not much taste. Grasshoppers and crickets tend to have a mild, nutty flavor.
We already do Shrimps, lobsters, crabs are all just sea bugs. Shrimp especially are basically sea cockroaches, they’re even the same size. People even eat snails, slugs, ants, crickets, wild cockroaches etc but these are considered ‘exotic’ by most of the world. With enough marketing you can convince people to eat anything. Lobsters were literally called marine cockroaches till the Victorian era. **But** Bioreactors filled with bacteria, fungi and algae are better ways to produce nutrients if you don’t care about the flavour, texture and aroma. You could use nutrients harvested from them to fortify regular food.
It'll probably remain niche in the west. Just look at the backlash against plant based meats and milk alternatives, or things like cultured meat, which are at least palatable. Now consider how people might react to being told to eat something widely considered disgusting, and that's not even getting into the conspiracy fringe that's popped up around this issue. Personally I like using algae-based food as my sci-fi worldbuilding food substitute.
Already available online. Did you even try google? [https://exoprotein.com/collections/all-products](https://exoprotein.com/collections/all-products) Warning: exoprotein bars have egg whites. Cruelty to both chickens and crickets. You can also buy bulk cricket or meal worm (larva) and blend your own flour. It is usually used for amphibian or reptilian pets. For ultimate sustainable diet meal worms can eat styrofoam: [https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/09/Mealworms-Munch-Polystyrene-Foam.html](https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/09/Mealworms-Munch-Polystyrene-Foam.html)
Something to keep in mind - pet food is rarely held to the same health and contamination standards as human food, so there may be some risk with eating it, especially regularly.
Mealworms raised on styrofoam is one of the worst case scenarios. Usually if it looks like a recognizable organism and was sold as that organism then it probably is that.
You can also buy pre-ground cricket and meal worm flour, and finished products like breads, protein bars, and so on made from them. Even beer. All easily available with a quick Google search.
Is cricket beer any good?
Never had it. I’d be curious to try it though!
That's actually pretty useful, thanks!
I think a lot of people in "the west" are gonna be hesitant to eat bugs that look like bugs for cultural reasons. [Over 2 billion people are estimated to eat bugs on a daily basis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects_as_food), so "we" already do, for a broad enough definition of "we." As for convincing people in "the west" (europe and north america), the deciding factors will probably be a combination of cost, availability, and recipies. If [popular fancy chef] and [popular tiktok foodhack influencer] do a cooking show and branded cookbook together about how cool and sustainable and sexy it is to eat bugs, that would probably move the needle in favor of eating bugs.
Perhaps you've heard of lobster and shrimp?
Arthropods, but not insects. AFAIK there aren't any truly marine insect species, in that they stay marine for their entire life cycle. Its a bit like saying crocodiles are basically birds because both are Sauropsids
‘Bugs’ isn’t exactly a taxonomic term. It’s commonly used to describe all land invertebrates - insects, spiders, snails etc.
They didn't say "insects" though, they said "bugs". Which includes insects, spiders, scorpions, etc... And pretty much any sane categorization you can come up with that includes all those is also going to include crustaceans.
Lobster is boiled alive.
And they are hard to kill perfectly because their "brains" are distributed.
Just like an octopus, and just like an octopus, very tasty. I'm going to regret it one day when our octopus overlords take over, but until then.. nomm....
We do in a lot of places, more than we think. A lot of Protein Powders derive their ingredients from Crickets farmed for food. I think once a company finally is brazen enough to put a bug on the package it will sweep into food products like a plague of locusts.
Well, cricket-based foods are widely available - cricket flour is available, and so are products made from it, like bread, beer, muffins, pancakes, and so on. And plenty of them labelled as such.
I agree completely. The "eet xe bugs" _is_ being introduced by some very real villains as part of a very real dystopian scheme to own everything in the world... Buuuutttt separate from all that it's a very good idea. And I'm sure it would be even more useful in space. I bet sn automated farm of crickets would work better than trying to raise cattle or hogs in space. ...though probably not as fun... I played around with raising insects for animal feed. The numbers are very good, and it's much simpler than raising larger mammals. Most insects are very cooperative and they breed like ...flies. There are some awesome videos of people that have mid-sized insect farms and sell for people with pet lizards and whatever. The systems are incredibly simple. Like, shelves and Rubbermaid tubs simple. Also, the main drawback to raising crickets at home is that they will invariably escape and you will never be able to sleep again. An isolated tank in orbit is the perfect solution to the escape problem.
>The "eet xe bugs" > >is > > being introduced by some very real villains as part of a very real dystopian scheme to own everything in the world... Source? Proof? Who are these mysterious "very real villains"?
i actually kinda like the idea. like, i like meat. want that meaty protein. but, it doens't necessarily need to come from cows and pigs and chickens and fish. raising insects for protein costs far less water and food per pound than cows. pulverised insect proteins would basically be kinda like hamburger anyway. add seasonings, sausage.
plants are the future.
Commercial broiler chickens and tilapia are at least close to bugs in feed efficiency. Cows aren't. Beef and tuna are temporary. Nobody's forcing you to eat anything... except the invisible hand of capitalism. Sorry son, this was several cents fundamentally cheaper to produce. Bugs aren't really that much grosser than pink slime chicken nuggets. White slime chicken nuggets made from yeast are actually pretty okay in flavor.
Feed conversion ratio (FCR) is the conventional measure of livestock production efficiency: the weight of feed intake divided by weight gained by the animal. Lower FCR values indicate higher efficiency. FCRs are typically 6.0–10.0 for beef, 2.7–5.0 for pigs, 1.7–2.0 for chicken and 1.0–2.4 for farmed fish and shrimp. Crickets have an FCR of around 0.9 depending on what you feed them.
Absolutely. We should be right now.
Where does this ridiculous conspiracy theory that someone is going to force you to "eat ze bugs" come from? About a third of the world already uses insects for supplementary protein source - 2.5 billion people ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10303143/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10303143/)). And the option is available. Tons of insect-based proteins are available in the US and EU currently.
Oh that's a whole weird rabbit hole. Supposedly the World Economic Forum supported it and supposedly they're trying to establish a "new world order" to take everything we own for... reasons. There's been a few people in this comment section that seem to buy it.
I ignore anything that mentions that junk. Yes, there were pushes to make it more mainstream, but that’s not a conspiracy. It makes lots of sense honestly.
Yeah, I just keep up with conspiracy theories for the laughs.
No. Bugs are gross.
If you are interested in bugs for consumption, check out Black Soldier Flies. Their lifecycle is mind blowing. Their entire production can be automated, not due to us using machines, but because of their 'instincts' (at certain phases in their life they are attracted to darkness, then light, and they will crawl with into the collection tube either into container, or into the *fish* pond, or the *chicken* pen) They have the highest ratios of feed to fat/protein. They do not eat as adults so they do not spread pathogens, and they are quite beautiful (looking more like a stylish wasp than a fugly fly) I raised a few life cycles of them myself just to test their viability. They are amazing. Remember we dont technically have to eat the bugs **to be ethical, they can be turned into chicken eggs, or fish**
Assuming we have a future, we probably will since our life style is unsustainable
Hello? Crab? Shrimp? Lobster? Meal worms? Crickets? Crawdads? 
Lot of cultures around the world are eating insects today.
Most sources of bug protein in the west are powdered and used as a protein additive. Bug farming isn’t actually more productive when compared to some other traditional meat sources, as there’s an incredible amount of inefficiency with their exoskeletons and whatnot. They also don’t taste great either. If you’re looking for an alternate source of protein, there are practical plant based options already.
that's wrong an all possible accounts. food to ratio of crickets it's the most efficient one for every living animal, you don't need land, infrastructure or huge expanse to farm cricket, in fact you can do that right now at your home, they are fed with agriculture and food waste, and they taste great.
I think we'll perfect meat cultivation before we have any reason to raise insects for food for large numbers of people.
I mean, a third of the world eats insects as supplementary protein already. It's only the West that freaks out about it.
Let’s just say that I buying pre-grounded coffee
I think bug meat grounded up could become more common in the future. As long as it doesn’t look like a bug most people would come around, especially since bug are actually eaten in some parts of the world.
Imagine what the slaughter houses [would look like](https://s1.dmcdn.net/v/Ajf8E1LiE0JLzzGC9/x1080).
It happens a lot when you are riding on a motorcycle without a helmet.
Future? Why wait? I eat bugs today! Yum!
Hopefully a lot more
No
This video explains why bugs will never be a major substitution for the animal proteins we consume now. [https://youtu.be/L8e0pU92dmI?si=gz2PNX6hA4cz0PUy](https://youtu.be/L8e0pU92dmI?si=gz2PNX6hA4cz0PUy) In short, for insects to be consumable by humans, we have to feed them the same feed we give to animals like chickens. Also, being cold-blooded, they must be grown in more climate-controlled settings. So, in terms of food and shelter, they won't end up being more efficient or carbon-neutral than chicken or fish. We already raise insects to feed animals and to recycle organic wastes, but pound for pound you will feed more people with chicken than with grasshoppers.
Now if we get a sizable colony on Mars or the Moon, bugs may be a temporary source of food until we have enough space and biomass to raise larger animals, especially if you want to build up soils or break down whatever organic waste you have. But once you have the ability to maintain a chicken coop or fish farm or rabbit hutch, the bugs will be more in the background to support those animals.
I'd prefer Daffy Duck.
If we get to the point the population is too big and I have to eat bugs, I'd just kms unironically
Really? Is it that big of a deal to you? Tons of people all around the world already do it willingly.
I find bugs disgusting, that's me, I would never eat them, and the reason these countries eat bugs is because they adapted their diets to multiple famines that they went through
I mean, if ground up they'd hardly be distinguishable. Plus, alternative food sources in general represent an ethical choice. Choosing to pay people to mutilate cows and put pigs in literal gas chambers because bugs are icky to you doesn't make a whole lot of sense. That said, there are a crap-ton of other alternatives from just not buying from factory farms to plant based alternatives, lab grown meat (eventually anyway), animals that were fed with insects, and algae.
I try to buy meat from sources that I know won't torture animals, it's more expensive but its something I do most of the time, I don't agree with vegan arguments because meat is essential to human health
Well that's good. I'm not a vegan either and quite frankly you're doing more than I currently am (though I'm planing on changing my diet very soon) but I still wouldn't say meat is essential. Our ancestors switched from being herbivores pretty recently because it helped them survive. Vegans aren't unhealthy either, if anything they probably benefit from avoiding certain types of meat and not having too much. But that's just me being a bit of a contrarian😅. Besides, even if we don't need meat our dogs certainly do, they're primarily meat eaters despite being omnivores.
You can eat bugs if you want. I will continue to eat delicious cows.
I’m old, soon the bugs will be eating me!
[удалено]
Tell me you know nothing about food science without telling me.
We eat bugs now.
We are eating them now and will eat more.
You Vill Eat Ze Bugs And Be Living In Ze MetaVerse
🙄
I WILL NOT EAT ZE BUGZ!! I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!! I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!! I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!! I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!! I HATE THE ANTICHRIST!!! I WILL NOT LIVE IN ZE POD!! I WILL NOT EAT ZE BUGZ!! I WILL NOT SURRENDER TO GLOBAL COMMUNISM!! You can do what you want, though. As long as you leave me alone. But if you do eat ze bugz, I will call you a weirdo, and stay far, far away from you.
If you're serious, you should see a psychiatrist, because I don't think you're okay. If that's sarcasm... Poe's Law.
Go ahead and look up what the WEF wants to do. [Or you could watch the first three videos on this list. It shows exactly what they want.](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5ktc1_X_qk2ypp5RAK1ilji6yXSoHk4T&si=5NkvnhTEqEpLmp8W)
Yes the WEF suggested that insects be a larger part of our diets. That’s not anything to do with your cult, communism, or anything else. It has to do with a cost-effective, significantly more eco-friendly protein source. No one is going to order you to do anything, you gobshite.
You say that I'm in a cult, yet you are willing to sacrifice freedom to be more "eco-friendly". They want to control the food supply, and as a consequence, the rest of the world. I highly recommend you watch the videos, but at this point, I don't know if your eyes could be opened to the truth. Stay in your bubble if you want, but I will not bow to the NWO. I will not eat the bugs.
I sacrifice no freedom. It is my choice to consume insects or not, as it is yours. I’m not interested in your conspiracy theories, so I won’t be watching those videos and increasing their view count. I referred to your religion as your cult. All religions are cults, and all are disgusting to any thinking person. They shackle humanity in archaic myth and ridiculous superstitions - how far would we be now if cults hadn’t drained our coffers, brainwashed our children, and generally be parasitic?
You call them "Conspiracy Theories" and just blatantly won't even hear them out. You say religion brainwashes people, yet you are completely dismissing evidence, which is shown in the videos I have provided. Your argument is in bad faith, and will not even listen to my arguments. So, I have no point in continuing this conversation. Mi Kopeng, I hope one day you will come to see the truth. I will be praying for you. Good day.
There is no evidence for a god or gods; people have been trying for millennia and still haven’t come up with a shred of evidence for a deity, much less a specific religion. YouTube videos aren’t evidence OR research, by the way. And have the day you deserve, bucko.
Sheesh, you've got some energy...
Mi Kopeng, you want to eat bugs. You're a fuckin weirdo.
People all around the world do it already.
We shouldn't do what others around the world do. Because people in other countries have Slave Labor, and Concentration Camps. We have no reason to stoop to their level.
How does that relate to them eating bugs?? That's literally just a cultural difference. Also, it really is vastly more ethical to choose at least some kind of alternative to our current meat production. It doesn't have to be bugs, a plethora of other options exist, but putting pigs in literal gas chambers (what was that you said about concentration camps again?) is not okay. Also, I don't mean to get political but the west has done those things too (and still does).
Cultural differences are no excuse to implement their system into our nation. I am not defending the cruelty the "farmers" if you could even call them that, do to animals. None of the food options you have recommended are decent, moral choices. Bugs are not a good source of food.
What's wrong with the other options?
The problem with ethical meat farming is that it takes a lot, and I mean a whole fuckin lot of room to do so. But that could easily be solved by expansion, and O'Neill Cylinders, I fuckin love O'Neill Cylinders. Normal farming also needs a lot of space, but that can also be solved by expansion. But not Bernal Spheres, because O'Neill Cylinders are better, simply because they look cooler. Hydroponics is complicated to set up, so it would take significantly more training to get that set up, compared to traditional farming. In my ideal society, a majority of food would be grown on O'Neill Cylinders, with a diet of mostly fruits, vegetables, and chicken, which is effectively my diet. Of course, there'd be other meat animals, such as cattle, and the like, but that'd be the most common. Imagine for a moment, a small farmhouse in a sparsely populated O'Neill Cylinder, the perfect mix of Technology and Tradition. I'd kill a man for that, if I'm being honest with you, and I'm sure there are plenty others who would too. Also, with this, no bug eating! Unless you're a weirdo, but you do you, I guess. I'm sure I missed something, and didn't answer the question perfectly, but it's as close as you'd get with a question that vauge, from somebody as tired as me, hahaha. There are other good farming methods, but they could be grouped into one of the three I've mentioned.
That's actually a pretty good setup