Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Are insects and fake meat the future of food?


UM-Bot

Recommended Posts

The real question...would you eat insects, or people first? That is, if you had no other choice.

Bob's Burgers might take on a whole new meaning.

Edited by WoIverine
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
On 5/6/2017 at 5:50 AM, Not Your Huckleberry said:

Hey, I'm all for eating insects and other invertebrates. 

Frank, being that you're from Vietnam and now live in Cambodia, are you familiar with eating tarantulas and scorpions? They're both surprisingly good. Tarantula legs are a bit crab like, but I won't ever eat the abdomen again. Scorpion is delicious and shrimp like; both are basically just land crustaceans. I don't know how sustainable it'd be, though. Some places in India and Sri Lanka, for example, the double whammy of people eating them as well as collecting them for the pet trade has some species on the brink of extinction.

Grasshoppers and crickets are great, also, and much easier to collect. Mealworms (the ones pictured) are, too, and are already widely cultivated for a number of reasons. Ants, when dried and crushed, often have a nice peppery flavor. 

Vietnam, Cambodia, cats and dogs on the menu! :D

Edited by WoIverine
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We DO eat a lot of arthropods: crab, lobsters, shrimp and so forth, they are sort of the insects of the sea (with a few extra legs). Perhaps it's a cultural thing, while I love seafood, I have no desire to eat insects. I saw plenty for sale in Thailand, but I opted for the critters from the sea, which were also plentiful and very tasty. The mud crab was especially good. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Sundew said:

We DO eat a lot of arthropods: crab, lobsters, shrimp and so forth, they are sort of the insects of the sea (with a few extra legs). Perhaps it's a cultural thing, while I love seafood, I have no desire to eat insects. I saw plenty for sale in Thailand, but I opted for the critters from the sea, which were also plentiful and very tasty. The mud crab was especially good. 

Through much of Asia fried insects are often seen on street-side stands being fried ready for consumption.  They are like crunchy hot salty (and spicy if you want) bits of fried potato.  The most common is grasshoppers.  

There are cultural variations -- for example the Thais relish cockroaches, but the Japanese find the idea of fried cockroaches repulsive.  I guess that is because they are ugly -- but it is easy enough to fry them in a batter.

I avoid them because the street vendors put on too much salt -- much as I avoid potato chips except the ones made here in our compound where the woman who makes them knows I don't want much salt.

They are good, and probably healthier, roasted, but ovens are rare around here (I must say one doesn't really get much taste -- it is the crunch people like).  I bought a spit roaster mainly for chicken but have tried them -- a lot of work for very little food.  They are also eaten raw -- especially by children out in the fields catching them.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.