# Insects: next year’s food?



## luis masci

Experts are predicting that in a few decades time we will all be munching away on grasshoppers and cockroaches.
There are several reasons for consuming insects:
1- Our conventional food supplies are limited and population continues growing. 
2- Many insects are an excellent source of protein and vitamins. 
3- Mass- producing meant and fish is putting great stress on both the production process and the environment. 
4- Eating bugs is perfectly normal; people have eaten insects throughout history and still do in most of the world’s continents. 
5- There are over 2 million species of insects, so they represent a diverse and almost unlimited supply of food. 
6- Remember that you already eat a large variety of insect larvae and caterpillars inadvertently every year in salads and vegetables. 
Do you know people who currently eat insects?
Would you able to eat insects?


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## LV4-26

I guess I could if I had no other choice. But they would have to be mashed and bread-coated (like breaded fish fillets) so I wouldn't see what I'm actually eating.


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## GenJen54

Hi Luis, 

Could you please provide us with a source for this information?
Who are these experts?
What makes them qualified to speak on such an issue?
Are they speaking about this globally, or only of certain countries?


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## Alxmrphi

Someone I knew bought chocolate covered insects and handed them out and some people ate them, it was hilarious yet disgusting, they borked for hours lol.

In reference to the statement, I don't believe it.


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## maxiogee

I find my diet is containing less and less meat-based components — not for any great ethical or environmental concerns, but because I never really liked most meat and am finding I don't enjoy those I did as much as I used to. I can go for salami-style meats, and eat a lot of cheese. I don't have a problem with meat-eaters.

I would probably refrain from a dish of insects - I've got too much bagage attached, which held insects to be the source of dirt and disease, I think, to allow me to feel comfortable eating them. 

I'm of the opinion that a trip into the wilderness with John the Baptist, with his diet of locusts and wild honey, would not have been a gastronomic _tour de force_ for me!


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## luis masci

GenJen54 said:


> Hi Luis,
> 
> Could you please provide us with a source for this information?
> Who are these experts?
> What makes them qualified to speak on such an issue?
> Are they speaking about this globally, or only of certain countries?


Actually I can’t because the source is not only one, but if you have a bit of common sense and minimums of knowledge you can realize it’s quite true. Just analyze the 6 points; do you find any of them wrong? I don’t.


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## norma 126

I don’t think what Luis says is quite far of the reality. 
While a few ones have the money in the world and it is used for weapons instead to avoid the mankind’s hungry, for sure we’ll to eat insects.


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## pedro0001

luis masci said:


> Actually I can’t because the source is not only one, but if you have a bit of common sense and minimums of knowledge you can realize it’s quite true. Just analyze the 6 points; do you find any of them wrong? I don’t.



mmm. Could you give some sources anyway please?

I'm not sure about a pair of points:



luis masci said:


> 1- Our conventional food supplies are limited and population continues growing.



Read here http://www.creativeaction.org/Facts/poverty.htm please:

"Poverty results in hunger even though we produce                enough food on earth to feed
everyone an adequate diet. Over 1 billion                people don’t get the food that has 
been produced because they                are unable to purchase the food. Eight hundred 
million (800,000,000)                people are in danger of starvation (World Bank)."




luis masci said:


> 2- Many insects are an excellent source of protein and vitamins.



Vitamins too? Are you sure?


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## maxiogee

luis masci said:


> 1- Our conventional food supplies are limited and population continues growing.
> 2- Many insects are an excellent source of protein and vitamins.
> 3- Mass- producing meant and fish is putting great stress on both the production process and the environment.
> 4- Eating bugs is perfectly normal; people have eaten insects throughout history and still do in most of the world’s continents.
> 5- There are over 2 million species of insects, so they represent a diverse and almost unlimited supply of food.
> 6- Remember that you already eat a large variety of insect larvae and caterpillars inadvertently every year in salads and vegetables.
> Do you know people who currently eat insects?
> Would you able to eat insects?





luis masci said:


> Just analyze the 6 points; do you find any of them wrong? I don’t.



1. The limitation of our food supply is not a problem. We could feed the population of the world as it is, and as it is likely to be, without doing anything different. We overproduce foodstuffs. However, were we to be seriously in danger of world hunger then we could stop using agricultural land to produce beef, and using it instead to produce cereals we could feed many more people than that land now feeds.

2. What vitamins do they offer, and how many would one need to eat to get one's RDA?

3. How would we go about mass-producing insects? They too need to eat, breed, poop and they do tend to suffer from diseases, and to spread diseases. How much would it cost me to get a vet to innoculate my herd of grasshoppers?

4. People have also died from eating insects throughout history.

5. Of that over 2 million, what proportion are of a size worth eating - How much nourishment would 1 housefly provide?

6. Yes, but what contribution do they make to our health?


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## jediknight13

Alex_Murphy said:


> Someone I knew bought chocolate covered insects and handed them out and some people ate them, it was hilarious yet disgusting, they borked for hours lol.
> 
> In reference to the statement, I don't believe it.


 

"borked"? What does that mean?


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## Etcetera

LV4-26 said:


> I guess I could if I had no other choice.


So do I. 
By the way, not long ago there was a 'reality show' on Russian TV, where people were left on a desert island. They did eat insects, and it seemed to be OK. 
As far as I know, some national cuisines (Chinese, for example, if I'm not mistaken) include insects in their dishes. So there's nothing that special. Koreans eat dogs, for example...
But I don't believe that the situation is so bad that we might have to eat insects for breakfast, dinner and supper.


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## LV4-26

Etcetera said:


> By the way, not long ago there was a 'reality show' on Russian TV, where people were left on a desert island. They did eat insects, and it seemed to be OK.


We also have it here and, I suspect, in many other countries. The difference is it didn't seem to be OK, when I saw it. They ate them as quickly as possible and made pretty painful faces.


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## maxiogee

jediknight13 said:


> "borked"? What does that mean?



Cqan you not guess from the context? I imagine it is akin to the "boke" my Northern Irish cousins used to use where I would use the word "vomit".


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## Etcetera

LV4-26 said:


> We also have it here and, I suspect, in many other countries. The difference is it didn't seem to be OK, when I saw it. They ate them as quickly as possible and made pretty painful faces.


I didn't watch this show - I just read about in newspapers. And I remember them saying that it was 'just awful' to eat those insects. 
But I'm pretty sure that it's equally awful to eat raw meat, for example.


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## luis masci

pedro0001 said:


> mmm. Could you give some sources anyway please?


 Pedro for you and those others who require the source, it was taking mainly from the magazine “Think in English” printed in Spain. 
There are a series of features describing the “benefice” of each insect species as food. 
It’s just written in a magazine (no internet facilities) so I must type what it says and it’s quite long, so I’m going to type textual one of them as example, ok?:
"*Beetles: different species of beetle have been eaten over the years in Africa, the Americas, Australia, China and even France. *
*Native Australians particularly appreciate beetle larvae as an excellent source of protein. The Bible specifically permits you to eat beetles (in Leviticus 11:22)*"

Honestly I had not idea The Bible has to do with it.


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## maxiogee

luis masci said:


> Honestly I had not idea The Bible has to do with it.


Kosher-ness


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## .   1

I will guess that insects are already consumed as a regular part of the daily diet by many millions of people.
I see nothing troubling about eating insects.
I would feel churlish were I to visit India or Mexico and refuse to eat a staple dish simply because it contained insects.
Bogong Moths and Witchety Grubs are delicious when prepared correctly.

.,,


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## loladamore

Ants contain thiamine, niacin and riboflavin, as well as being high in protein (*source*). There is plenty of information in Mexico regarding the nutritutional value of insects. Apparently, an awful lot of insects are a great source of numerous vitamins and minerals and what little fat they contain is non-saturated. This *fancy-looking dish* is made from _escamoles_, sometimes called Mexican caviar, which are the larvae of black ants. Yummy, yummy, eh? My daughter loves eating these lovely crunchy things called *chapulines* with salt and lemon. I am a little more squeamish, though, partly because I know that they are *these*. 
There is nothing wrong with eating insects. They are very good for you. I just don't want to...


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## Tsoman

I've done it before and I'll do it again.


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## Hakro

We are already drinking Grasshoppers, aren't we?

Seriously, I have eaten insects already about forty years ago. They were canned bees in a sweet sauce, possibly honey. They were delicious. I can't remember where they came from, possibly from US because we had canned rattlesnake, too. I could have that food any time again.

I have eaten insects and worms in other situations, too, but I don't want to tell you about it. You wouldn't like it.


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## Daddyo

I've had fried grasshoppers with lemon and salt. I've tasted chocolate covered ants (Nestlé's "Crunch bites" reminds me of them, except the ants were a bit crunchier and saltier, and got stuck between my teeth). I suppose that in the beginning a different presentation might be necessary to overcome most people's squeamishness, but once it becomes a staple of daily diet, no one would even bat an eye at them.
However, it'll be difficult to harvest insects, since they are notoriously riotous creeps. I mean, a whole bunch of insects together are not known as a "herd", but as a "plague".
Scientists still cling to the hope that the world population will self-stabilize at twelve billion (12 x 10^9, so please don't get started on the Spanish billion thingy). Somehow, I think I will agree with the doom sayers that there cannot be a population steady-state, but that it will spiral out of control and then crash. Maybe, during the wild demographic explosion we will have to eat creepy-crawlers. Who knows?


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## french4beth

Better insects than "Soylent Green"...

Here's an interesting article published by Ohio State University. Another good article can be found here.

I have sampled insects before; they were either deep-fried or dipped in chocolate (and what doesn't taste good deep-fried or covered in chocolate?). I didn't care for the legs & stick-like appendages; other than that, they tasted fine.


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## spakh

Insects: next year's food?
Well, hmm, yep, that would be a nice change for out diet.
Why not try?


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## maxiogee

What is it proposed that these insects will be fed?


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## pedro0001

maxiogee said:


> What is it proposed that these insects will be fed?



Humans, of course.


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## loladamore

maxiogee said:


> What is it proposed that these insects will be fed?


 
Other insects, perhaps - our leftovers and picnic crumbs!


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