As someone who was eating insects long before cricket protein bars became in vogue, I don't see entomophagy becoming anything more than a fad in the west, especially America.
The taste of insects simply does not compare to meat and poultry. Granted, this has a lot to do with cultural expectations, but that's exactly why I don't think that people are going to gradually shift to consuming a very different flavor.
Also, as someone who used to be heavily into protein, I don't buy the notion that people need more protein than what they are currently getting. A human body really doesn't need that much protein, and even body builders don't need as much protein as they often consume. If someone is telling you that you need to consume protein, it's probably because they're trying to sell you something. Even more so if they are calling it a "super-food".
Maybe things will actually change. I dunno. The insects that I thought were the most tasty(moth caterpillars) are the ones that people are least likely to want to eat. People might be fine with dried crickets and meal worms, but I challenge them to eat something more substantial.
Every "bug person" I used to follow on social media warns us of a looming food crisis and that insects will save the world. I thought it no coincidence that most of them either give paid lectures, sell books, or are associated with a "bug startup".
"Also, as someone who used to be heavily into protein, I don't buy the notion that people need more protein than what they are currently getting. A human body really doesn't need that much protein, and even body builders don't need as much protein as they often consume. If someone is telling you that you need to consume protein, it's probably because they're trying to sell you something. Even more so if they are calling it a "super-food"."
Totally agree. Most people need more exercise, not more protein. Maybe once they exercise 6x a week for 2 hours we should think about getting more protein.
> The taste of insects simply does not compare to meat and poultry.
Poultry, especially the meat of chicken and turkeys is close to tasteless. I would argue the opposite, the average consumer doesn't really care for the taste of the meat itself as long as the marinade is delicious.
Optimum adaptation for weight lifters is 1.3 - 1.8g for each kg of bodyweight. So, a 180lb person that weightlifts should eat ~144g protein. But, you can do better
>Elevated protein consumption, as high as 1.8-2.0 g · kg(-1) · day(-1) depending on the caloric deficit, may be advantageous in preventing lean mass losses during periods of energy restriction to promote fat loss.
Also, it seems to be questionable how efficient crickets actually are when it comes to Protein according to some studies:
> Although it has been suggested that crickets reared for human or livestock consumption may result in a more sustainable supply of protein, this study finds that such conclusions will depend, in large part, on what the crickets are fed and which systems of livestock production they are compared to. When fed grain-based diets at a scale of economic relevance, populations of crickets in this study showed little improvement in PCE compared to broiler chickens fed similar diets. When fed processed, organic side-streams of relatively high quality, cricket populations achieved a harvestable size. Yet, whether crickets could be raised economically on substrates of similar quality and level of processing requires further analysis. The unprocessed and lower-quality organic side-streams tested in this study could not support adequate growth and survival of cricket populations. Therefore, the potential for crickets to supplement the global supply of dietary protein appears to be more limited than has been recently suggested.
I agree with your assessments about entomophagy. However, I think it no coincidence that most of the “tech people“ on this blog either give paid lectures, sell books, or are associated with a “tech startup”.
I'm not sure if there are numbers but it seems a lot of people I know have very carb rich diets. It would probably be good for them to switch some of that out for protein.
I have heard that insects taste like roasted almonds or other nuts. If this is true, why would Americans even feel the need to start eating them? I still freak out every time I see a big moth in my house. I can't touch them. I can only touch small bugs ~ fruit fly.
Insects can give some different texture to a dish. Just don't do an "only insect with some seasonning" dish: make something like veggies or pasta and add some insects for the crunchy feel. Think Paella, not barbecued steak.
>As someone who was eating insects long before cricket protein bars became in vogue, I don't see entomophagy becoming anything more than a fad in the west, especially America.
Entirely agree. I've been reading those articles for the "rise of bug farming" for the last 30+ years.
It's like those "holographic disks" -- something that's always coming in the next 10 years.
I don't doubt some such business exist. I doubt they'll become anything substantial, both here and even over there where they traditionally eat some insects anyway.
The food industry already intentionally feeds us insects, though most people don't know it. The red dye in many food products, for example, often originates from industrially squished insects.
>The taste of insects simply does not compare to meat and poultry. Granted, this has a lot to do with cultural expectations, but that's exactly why I don't think that people are going to gradually shift to consuming a very different flavor.
Not even the taste, if you process it into something like a bar or a protein powder the texture is not terribly palatable.
I would actually be OK with something like a sausage that's 40% pig, 60% crickets, if it's possible. I also wouldn't mind if half of my McDonalds burger was made of crickets. A reduction in demand for meat might also have the positive effect of enabling the production of higher-quality meat from better-cared-for livestock.
I would think insect protein could easily play the role that soy protein does in lots of 'mystery meat' processed foods like hot dogs or hamburgers. That said, I am skeptical it could be produced more cheaply than soy.
The whole idea of directly eating insects is stupid. They can be fed to animals we normally eat (e.g. fish). The advantage is that insects can process stuff that we would otherwise throw away, and are very efficient.
The imminent insects-as-food transition has been "just around the corner" at least since I was reading Popular Science magazine in middle school.
Always with the same scare-pretext of "whelp, we'll have no choice! get ready to knock back some crickets whether you like it or not ;)". Then it plots out how much meat Americans eat and shows how it's unsustainable.
It just doesn't follow logically to me.
What seems more likely is that we will ween off of the idea that we need meat in every single meal. And once you also factor in the possibility of pricing in externalities, meat will become – at least – a dinner treat.
Meat is already subsidized by animal neglect, sketchy tactics, and mass pollution. I wouldn't mind if we were paying the honest price of meat at the market today. We'd get this cultural change on the roll, and we'd probably have something better already. And it won't be bugs.
Many Native American tribes practiced land fishing, where long nets were strung out and left for a day to catch grasshoppers and whatever else got stuck in them. I'm having trouble finding links though:
"En'neh, or grasshoppers, are eaten by the Konkau. They catch them with nets, or by driving them into pits, then roast them and reduce them to powder for preservation."
You can live very well off the land (even in deserts) if you are willing to eat insects, because their combined mass can be higher than the visible wildlife. Ethically if I had to choose between hunting and butchering animals or having more food than I could handle from passively-caught grasshoppers, I might choose the latter!
This idea is terrible. Chitin, the sugar in bug exoskeletons, activates the innate human immune system. Switching out our proteins with bugs would surely cause a rise in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
Non-human chitinases would simply be added as a processing step. This might be as simple as canning the grubs in tomato sauce, or serving them with avocado.
People do eat mushrooms and shellfish, after all.
Larger insects can have their exoskeletons removed or partially removed, and those can be turned into chitosan, just like the shells from peeled shrimp.
Ugh I always forget this, and about every 5 years I'll accidentally eat some crab in shell. My face will turn red, lungs tighten up, and any part of my skin that touches it turns into a red rash. It is a real thing.
To be honest, I'm holding out for clean meat, eating insects just seems unnecessary to me, especially because of welfare considerations—insects potentially have the capacity to feel pain and you have to kill a significant amount of insects just to make a small amount of food.
"Considerable empirical evidence supports the assertion that insects feel pain and are conscious of their sensations. In so far as their pain matters to them, they have an interest in not being pained and their lives are worsened by pain. Furthermore, as conscious beings, insects have future (even if immediate) plans with regard to their own lives, and the death of insects frustrates these plans. In that sentience appears to be an ethically sound, scientifically viable basis for granting moral status and in consideration of previous arguments which establish a reasonable expectation of consciousness and pain in insects, I propose the following, minimum ethic: We ought to refrain from actions which may be reasonably expected to kill or cause nontrivial pain in insects when avoiding these actions has no, or only trivial, costs to our own welfare."
— Jeffery A. Lockwood
I'm much more enthusiastic about plant-based foods than insects. The impossible burger is pretty fantastic - there's no cultural barrier to overcome, and I expect it's even better for the planet than crickets.
This is a wheat and potato proteins based burger, where they add leghemoglobin grown in yeast, to give some of that bloody, irony taste. And coconut oil for fat.
If you're in New York City area or New Jersey, or Chicago area, your nearest White Castle probably has the "impossible slider" for $1.99.
As a side note, I've often pondered what would have the outcome if Subway had 'leaned in' and actually promoted its "50% chicken-50% soy but tastes the same as 100% chicken" as an environmentally sustainable and healthier option instead of trying to hide it and then getting caught.
There is indeed a cultural barrier in the United States when it comes to vegetarian diets. Many Americans avoid "fake meat" due to their cultural beliefs.
i agree that the taste and texture are similar to eating a meat hamburger. but, i just hope these companies (Impossible Burger, Beyond Burger, et al) can bring down the price.
we bought frozen Beyond Burgers recently "on sale" from our local grocery store for $3.00 per 4 oz burger. good quality ground beef is cheaper than that.
You would need to quantify what you mean by better for the planet. The number of insects, worms, rodents, frogs, and other small animals destroyed by mechanized farming is staggering. Also, I have had the impossible burger and was not at all impressed, though it looks absolutely perfect.
As a kid I hated eating insects. I still do - I don't understand how people can.
However, my definition of insects includes crawfish, lobster, urchins etc. They are fancy insects, but I do not see much difference between most seafood and bugs, except the size maybe.
It is socially acceptable to eat seafood. It wasn't always like that. New England had rules against feeding your employees lobster more than once a week!
Give it time, a generation or two, and people will eat bugs. After all, it's just food! What we used to say round my place: it it moves, kill it. If it's dead, cook it, and eat it.
> Some people say it will be like sushi in 20 years. I am really optimistic that it may be a lot faster
This outlook does not seem realistic. 20 years ago I remember watching a news segment on Australian TV about how eating bugs was the future. The people they interviewed were mostly grossed out. I don't think much has changed. I think it's more likely that you'll see people take up a more vegetarian diet if meat starts to become scarce.
The author of the famous natural farming manifesto The One-Straw Revolution[0], Masanobu Fukuoka[1], was a microbiologist assigned by the Japanese army to evaluate the edibility of various insects encountered by the army as they spread across Southeast Asia. He concluded that almost all of them were edible.
I tried a cricket burger recently at the F&A Next[2] event at Wageningen, Europe's pre-eminent agricultural university[1], which may have even been sourced from the farm in this article. While the taste was OK, I literally woke up early in the morning with stomach pain.
Somebody brought a bunch of salty crisp mealworms to work. It was a little wierd first, but they basically taste like thin paper chips; not at all a bad taste.
For those of you on diets, if I recall correctly they had pretty high fat, pretty high protein (like 50ish %) and very low amounts of carbs). Might be worth considering for health issue.
"the muddy pens where as many as 1,200 pigs once wallowed into a climate-controlled cricket farm. It’s on pace to yield 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds) of the edible protein this year"
Pigs reach slaughter weight at around 6 months of age at which point it yields around 180lbs of hanging weight meat.
The article further claims a 18/63 ratio of land required per gram of protein in favor of crickets.
Assuming they previously slaughtered 1000 pigs a year -> 180,000 lbs * 63/18 = 630,000lbs is their expected cricket protein capacity which is ~200X more than their current output. Any ideas on why the numbers are so different ?
Edit: I just realized that a pig steak is mostly water and the cricket protein is likely dehydrated. So it more like 50X not 200X.
In a study conducted by University of Turku, 70% of the Finnish respondents were interested in edible insects and 50% said they would buy food made of insects, if it were available [0].
Supermarkets in my area here in Helsinki have sold insect foods (breads, bars) for several months already. I can't comment on the taste as I am a vegetarian :)
If I had to bet between insects and plant-based meat substitutes like the Impossible Burger, I'd bet on the latter. Insects are cool, but they just doesn't make sense as a major food staple.
They don't really taste like much.
Texture wise, adult insects have too much chitin.
They're not as easy to farm as you think (high death rates).
But the real problem is that they're basically snacks. Finger-food. Toppings. A person who accepts entomology is not going to automatically stop eating beef, pork, chicken and fish.
I met a bunch of people here in Stellenbosch, South Africa at a startup called Gourmet Grubb. Their first product is an ice-cream made from insect milk, trademarked EntoMilk - no kidding! Fascinating stuff, check them out here: https://gourmetgrubb.com/
Ignoring whether people want to eat it, is insect protein really worth it? According to https://entomologytoday.org/2015/04/15/crickets-are-not-a-fr..., it's about as efficient as chicken. And for insects to produce high-quality protein they need high-quality feed.
I had an insect burger lately, consisting of crickets and mealworms. It was a large amount of critters but with a pathetic amount of protein for a relatively large surface area. It didn't feel as fulfilling as a burger. That's when it made me wonder whether it's really that efficient.
Not knowledgeable in this area, but very curious. I know it would be extremely expensive to be concerned with extracting "waste" systems of every insect we consume as we do with other species. What does insect "waste" system consist of that could help me be more inclined to test this food trend, the risks of removing the waste systems obviously don't exist as they do with other species?
My research into the area has shown me that even though insects are supposed to use fewer resources, and are grown as animal feed, they are rather more expensive than most meat sources.
Mainly because of labor costs. Also, counter to intuition, many insects take a longer time to raise to "market size" than many conventional livestock.
I had some cricket-coated chicken at a bug farm in Pembrokeshire the other day, it was tasty. As the crickets were ground into a powder it was very inoffensive. I don't generally like food that can stare back, such as whole fish, so cricket flour is good for me.
[+] [-] ravenstine|7 years ago|reply
The taste of insects simply does not compare to meat and poultry. Granted, this has a lot to do with cultural expectations, but that's exactly why I don't think that people are going to gradually shift to consuming a very different flavor.
Also, as someone who used to be heavily into protein, I don't buy the notion that people need more protein than what they are currently getting. A human body really doesn't need that much protein, and even body builders don't need as much protein as they often consume. If someone is telling you that you need to consume protein, it's probably because they're trying to sell you something. Even more so if they are calling it a "super-food".
Maybe things will actually change. I dunno. The insects that I thought were the most tasty(moth caterpillars) are the ones that people are least likely to want to eat. People might be fine with dried crickets and meal worms, but I challenge them to eat something more substantial.
Every "bug person" I used to follow on social media warns us of a looming food crisis and that insects will save the world. I thought it no coincidence that most of them either give paid lectures, sell books, or are associated with a "bug startup".
[+] [-] maxxxxx|7 years ago|reply
Totally agree. Most people need more exercise, not more protein. Maybe once they exercise 6x a week for 2 hours we should think about getting more protein.
[+] [-] jcfrei|7 years ago|reply
Poultry, especially the meat of chicken and turkeys is close to tasteless. I would argue the opposite, the average consumer doesn't really care for the taste of the meat itself as long as the marinade is delicious.
[+] [-] komali2|7 years ago|reply
>Elevated protein consumption, as high as 1.8-2.0 g · kg(-1) · day(-1) depending on the caloric deficit, may be advantageous in preventing lean mass losses during periods of energy restriction to promote fat loss.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22150425
The ".8g per pound of bodyweight" rule is pretty solid.
[+] [-] paulschraven|7 years ago|reply
> Although it has been suggested that crickets reared for human or livestock consumption may result in a more sustainable supply of protein, this study finds that such conclusions will depend, in large part, on what the crickets are fed and which systems of livestock production they are compared to. When fed grain-based diets at a scale of economic relevance, populations of crickets in this study showed little improvement in PCE compared to broiler chickens fed similar diets. When fed processed, organic side-streams of relatively high quality, cricket populations achieved a harvestable size. Yet, whether crickets could be raised economically on substrates of similar quality and level of processing requires further analysis. The unprocessed and lower-quality organic side-streams tested in this study could not support adequate growth and survival of cricket populations. Therefore, the potential for crickets to supplement the global supply of dietary protein appears to be more limited than has been recently suggested.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
[+] [-] tomcam|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skellera|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonytrary|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arkh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|7 years ago|reply
Entirely agree. I've been reading those articles for the "rise of bug farming" for the last 30+ years.
It's like those "holographic disks" -- something that's always coming in the next 10 years.
I don't doubt some such business exist. I doubt they'll become anything substantial, both here and even over there where they traditionally eat some insects anyway.
[+] [-] amelius|7 years ago|reply
https://www.wired.com/2015/09/cochineal-bug-feature/
[+] [-] ryanmercer|7 years ago|reply
Not even the taste, if you process it into something like a bar or a protein powder the texture is not terribly palatable.
[+] [-] Asooka|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linkmotif|7 years ago|reply
How do they taste?
[+] [-] blacksmith_tb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lgregg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrBuddyCasino|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] always_good|7 years ago|reply
Always with the same scare-pretext of "whelp, we'll have no choice! get ready to knock back some crickets whether you like it or not ;)". Then it plots out how much meat Americans eat and shows how it's unsustainable.
It just doesn't follow logically to me.
What seems more likely is that we will ween off of the idea that we need meat in every single meal. And once you also factor in the possibility of pricing in externalities, meat will become – at least – a dinner treat.
Meat is already subsidized by animal neglect, sketchy tactics, and mass pollution. I wouldn't mind if we were paying the honest price of meat at the market today. We'd get this cultural change on the roll, and we'd probably have something better already. And it won't be bugs.
[+] [-] foolfoolz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zackmorris|7 years ago|reply
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-eating-bugs...
http://www.hollowtop.com/finl_html/amerindians.htm
http://labs.russell.wisc.edu/insectsasfood/files/2012/09/Boo... <- warning PDF
"En'neh, or grasshoppers, are eaten by the Konkau. They catch them with nets, or by driving them into pits, then roast them and reduce them to powder for preservation."
You can live very well off the land (even in deserts) if you are willing to eat insects, because their combined mass can be higher than the visible wildlife. Ethically if I had to choose between hunting and butchering animals or having more food than I could handle from passively-caught grasshoppers, I might choose the latter!
[+] [-] smurphy|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitin#Humans_and_other_mammal...
[+] [-] wahern|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logfromblammo|7 years ago|reply
People do eat mushrooms and shellfish, after all.
Larger insects can have their exoskeletons removed or partially removed, and those can be turned into chitosan, just like the shells from peeled shrimp.
[+] [-] delbel|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Asooka|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] YokoZar|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leoreeves|7 years ago|reply
"Considerable empirical evidence supports the assertion that insects feel pain and are conscious of their sensations. In so far as their pain matters to them, they have an interest in not being pained and their lives are worsened by pain. Furthermore, as conscious beings, insects have future (even if immediate) plans with regard to their own lives, and the death of insects frustrates these plans. In that sentience appears to be an ethically sound, scientifically viable basis for granting moral status and in consideration of previous arguments which establish a reasonable expectation of consciousness and pain in insects, I propose the following, minimum ethic: We ought to refrain from actions which may be reasonably expected to kill or cause nontrivial pain in insects when avoiding these actions has no, or only trivial, costs to our own welfare." — Jeffery A. Lockwood
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
[+] [-] bcatanzaro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sampo|7 years ago|reply
This is a wheat and potato proteins based burger, where they add leghemoglobin grown in yeast, to give some of that bloody, irony taste. And coconut oil for fat.
If you're in New York City area or New Jersey, or Chicago area, your nearest White Castle probably has the "impossible slider" for $1.99.
[+] [-] jpao79|7 years ago|reply
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/food-scientists-weig...
[+] [-] phil248|7 years ago|reply
There is indeed a cultural barrier in the United States when it comes to vegetarian diets. Many Americans avoid "fake meat" due to their cultural beliefs.
[+] [-] HillaryBriss|7 years ago|reply
we bought frozen Beyond Burgers recently "on sale" from our local grocery store for $3.00 per 4 oz burger. good quality ground beef is cheaper than that.
[+] [-] tomcam|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1996|7 years ago|reply
However, my definition of insects includes crawfish, lobster, urchins etc. They are fancy insects, but I do not see much difference between most seafood and bugs, except the size maybe.
It is socially acceptable to eat seafood. It wasn't always like that. New England had rules against feeding your employees lobster more than once a week!
Give it time, a generation or two, and people will eat bugs. After all, it's just food! What we used to say round my place: it it moves, kill it. If it's dead, cook it, and eat it.
[+] [-] nkrisc|7 years ago|reply
Personally, I always imagined whoever the first person to eat a lobster was must have been very hungry indeed.
[+] [-] Mindstormy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Steko|7 years ago|reply
https://www.xkcd.com/1268/
[+] [-] patorjk|7 years ago|reply
This outlook does not seem realistic. 20 years ago I remember watching a news segment on Australian TV about how eating bugs was the future. The people they interviewed were mostly grossed out. I don't think much has changed. I think it's more likely that you'll see people take up a more vegetarian diet if meat starts to become scarce.
[+] [-] contingencies|7 years ago|reply
I tried a cricket burger recently at the F&A Next[2] event at Wageningen, Europe's pre-eminent agricultural university[1], which may have even been sourced from the farm in this article. While the taste was OK, I literally woke up early in the morning with stomach pain.
[0] http://www.appropedia.org/images/d/d3/Onestraw.pdf
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wageningen_University_and_Rese...
[+] [-] chriselles|7 years ago|reply
I’m not much of a believer in a western culture change that will see us eating whole insects like we’re living in dystopian Soylent Green.
But I can see protein powder derived from insects being palatable for western audiences.
But can it be produced profitably at scale?
I’ve eaten a bug on a stick streetfood in Cambodia, I’m not a fan.
[+] [-] tomjen3|7 years ago|reply
For those of you on diets, if I recall correctly they had pretty high fat, pretty high protein (like 50ish %) and very low amounts of carbs). Might be worth considering for health issue.
[+] [-] louprado|7 years ago|reply
Pigs reach slaughter weight at around 6 months of age at which point it yields around 180lbs of hanging weight meat.
The article further claims a 18/63 ratio of land required per gram of protein in favor of crickets.
Assuming they previously slaughtered 1000 pigs a year -> 180,000 lbs * 63/18 = 630,000lbs is their expected cricket protein capacity which is ~200X more than their current output. Any ideas on why the numbers are so different ?
Edit: I just realized that a pig steak is mostly water and the cricket protein is likely dehydrated. So it more like 50X not 200X.
[+] [-] buovjaga|7 years ago|reply
Supermarkets in my area here in Helsinki have sold insect foods (breads, bars) for several months already. I can't comment on the taste as I am a vegetarian :)
[0]: http://www.utu.fi/fi/yksikot/fff/palvelut/kehitysprojektit/h...
[+] [-] lookACamel|7 years ago|reply
They don't really taste like much. Texture wise, adult insects have too much chitin. They're not as easy to farm as you think (high death rates).
But the real problem is that they're basically snacks. Finger-food. Toppings. A person who accepts entomology is not going to automatically stop eating beef, pork, chicken and fish.
[+] [-] warrenski|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FooBarWidget|7 years ago|reply
I had an insect burger lately, consisting of crickets and mealworms. It was a large amount of critters but with a pathetic amount of protein for a relatively large surface area. It didn't feel as fulfilling as a burger. That's when it made me wonder whether it's really that efficient.
[+] [-] perpetualcrayon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bayesian_horse|7 years ago|reply
Mainly because of labor costs. Also, counter to intuition, many insects take a longer time to raise to "market size" than many conventional livestock.
[+] [-] carapace|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KnightOfWords|7 years ago|reply