Personally I find this --sustainable-- idea revolting but . . .

. . .especially after recently munching on a cocroach leg (strong taste!)
I was just reading an interesting article on edible insects in Cosmos no longer available on line

The argument for eating bugs (a pretty good one):
1. We eat them now eg the US FDA says it is OK to have up to thirty insect pieces in 100g peanut butter etc etc

2. Eaten in Africa and Asia (& 113 countries) some are delicacies.

3. We eat crustacean from the sea crustaceans and insects all are arthropods.

4. Sea crustacean eat dead meat --- insects are vegan.

5. Crickets or Grasshoppers can be more nutritious than an equal quantity of beef or pork.

6. Fats in bugs are healthier.

7. High in essential amino acids and good protein.

8.Insects are generally clean living in their choice of food and habitat.

9. Insects forage on wider range of food plants than traditional meat animals and so can tap sources that are worthless in conventional meat production eg cactus mesquite.

10. Diet conversion is six times higher than beef "Cows and pigs are the SUVs of the food world. And bugs--they're the Piruses, maybe even bicycles".

11. Bugs can be raised sustainably.

 

Bug er that MA

 

First time I met my Japanese grandmother-in-law she was snacking on some crickets boiled in sugar and soy sauce. She was in her 90's then, and over 100 now. Apparently, when she was younger they were quite poor and would collect grasshoppers by hand, prepare them and sell to folks passing by. Anyway, when she offered the crickets, I accepted and found they were quite delicious treats! Crispy outside, chewy-gooey inside and just the right balance of sweet and salty.

 

Are they better for you than eggs? 'cause I'd rather feed them to my chooks and eat the eggs.

 

Maybe you could do baked choko rolled in crushed bugs MA? mmmmm.....

 

All things taste great with an open mind and plenty of garlic butter.

 

You are all evil, rude people and god will get you and fry you in GM canola oil!

Thank you Yukkuri_Kame for your constructive, first hand comment.I hope you do not follow the example set by our more senior members

I have eaten witchittry grubs, they were OK, a bit like squishy peanut butter, but wouldn't go out of my way to find more.

The thing is, the case made for eating bugs is VERY good --sustainably wise.
The word for it is Entomophagy
Search that and you get
Why not eat insects, by Vincent M. Holst (1885) - Part 1
https://www.foodreference.com/html/artinsects1.html
and
https://www.manataka.org/page160.html
and
https://www.melaniejean.com/insectcuisine.htm
Perhaps it is all a learning curve?

 

Entomophagy

I seem to recall reading somewhere that M.Fukuoka studied the edibility of insects during the war years.
Please let me know if anyone can confirm.

I used to get the larvae these for fishing bait out of the ground under eucalypts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trictena_atripalpis
https://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/hepi/atripal.html

Often, if the fish were off the bite, I'd roll them in the hot ashes of a fire for a few minutes
then eat them.
Very fatty/oily, peanut buttery (sort of) taste with partially digested sawdust giving a nice wood sort of flavour and interesting texture.

Raw, they're not as enjoyable, they're a bit acrid and gooey and kind of sting the back of my throat.

like Raw egg vs. cooked egg I guess , most people go for the latter if given the choice.

I eat these anyday if given the chance.
4-5 is a good feed.

I've also tried longicorn beetle larvae ( wood borers) ,
but they're nowhere near as good in taste or size.

 

hi, I was in Thailand recently and tried a grasshopper at a night market. It was good! seriously! It tasted like soy sauce and sort of grainy/reedy... Hard to describe. Maybe like multi-grain bread with lots of husks still in it. If you've ever eaten raw wheat you'll know what i'm talking about haha. The texture was very crunchy and reminded me of chips.

 

IMHO, the process of learning to tolerate eating bugs is just a transition towards Soylent Green. It's a canary in the coalmine.

I draw the line at leeching acorns on my dietary powerdown extremes.

 

G'day mos6507

I remember seeing Soylent Green as a child - frightened me a great deal. Maybe this is why I am so passionate today about furthering the utopian ideal, rather than the dystopian...

Hooroo, Marko.

 

I was thinking about this topic the last few days after watching a cooking show segment from Burma where they showed certain spiders , ant larvae and the odd ant being food ingredients, and I did have the thought I would not hesitate to try something prepared by someone who knew what they were doing. I too was thinking they would be a more sustainable and higher quality protein if they were responsibly farmed or harvested and would be less environmental impact than the larger livestock we more customarily consume, again if raised or harvested sustainably. The idea does not revolt me in the least .

 

Boiled ants and locusts make healthiest and most nutritious food on Earth

locust plague or opportunity?

More at:-https://english.pravda.ru/health/09-06-2006/81770-insects-0/

 

More at https://www.ergolabcom-unisg.it/nl/0810/insectEN.htm

 

https://www.abc.net.au/rural/locusts/?WT.mc_id=Corp_ABCLocust_FacebookABCGateway

 

Eating bugs can be just another type of foraging, the lightest way to live.

Digging

 

https://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57729/
Opinion: Bugs can solve food crisis
A tropical entomologist argues that edible insects offer a sustainable alternative for conventional meat

[Published 29th September 2010 01:14 PM GMT]

As early as 1885, the British entomologist Vincent M. Holt wrote a booklet with the title: "Why not eat insects?"
It is a good question, as most of the world population does.
More than 1000 insect species are eaten in the tropics, including caterpillars, grasshoppers, beetles, termites, ants, bees, wasps, and true bugs. This is probably because insects in warmer climates are bigger and show more crowding behaviour than in temperate zones, making harvesting from nature easier.
It is an erroneous Western assumption that people in the tropics eat insects because they are starving. To the contrary, an insect snack is often considered a delicacy.

Insects sold at Laotian markets.
Image: Arnold van Huis
Nutritionally, insects are comparable to conventional meat such as pork, beef, mutton, or fish. Depending on the species, insects contain between 30 and 70 percent protein, and are a good source of essential fatty acids, vitamins (in particular the B vitamins) and minerals (such as iron and zinc).
The chitinous exoskeleton comprises only a small part of the total biomass (

 

Hmmmm. There is an Australian author by the name of Alan Baillie who wrote a book called "A Taste of Cockroach" and you can draw the moral to the story as "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" - it's a good read and i'm going to stick with that same conclusion.

 

The Forum
11/12/2010
MEDIA:
Listen now (55 minutes)
the future of food consumption. Dutch behavioural ecologist Marcel Dicke argues we should all learn to like the taste of insects – however whiskery or slimy they may be. Insects are a more efficient way to provide food rich in protein, for the world’s growing population.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00ccrnv

 

Well if the predictions about chronic and critical food shortages come to pass we'd better all be willing to eat insects because that might be all there is to eat for most people. I am certain that the habit of insect eating in asia arose out of famine situations. If they like them, we can probably get to like them too.