Are insects and fake meat the future of food?

[GlitterRose]

12 hours ago, XenoFish said:

I quite like my diet of midnight spiders I eat in my sleep.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Soylent Green for everyone.

I prefer to not think of the spiders I may have eaten in my sleep. Thanks for the nightmares.

Soylent Green they can keep. Who knows where it's been?

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by ChaosRose

[Frank Merton]

I tend to imagine a future with somewhat less meat, but a much greater variety, quality and quantity of other foods, as slowly taboos disappear and productivity grows.

I can't remember the last time I actually ate cow -- about the same time as I actually ate horse.

[HandsomeGorilla]

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. 

[White Unicorn]

16 hours ago, Imaginarynumber1 said:

Bugs are delicious. This is a fact and you are missing out if you do not try them

Yeah I accidentally chewed  an ant that went in my mouth once, it was sweet and good but the legs in my mouth really creeped me out! 

I hear cicadas taste like shrimp with a peanut flavor. I love scrimp tails so I don't have to look at the whole creepy thing. 

I think eating insects won't be that bad as long as I don't see the whole bodies! 

 

[White Unicorn]

8 hours ago, quiXilver said:

I live in southern california, I have to dodge great veggie patties just to get to the beach. 

 

I could be total vegetarian in California easily. The veggie dishes and burgers were awesome there not mention the juices too! 

Back in the east where I live people are overweight fried meat and potato eaters! The veggie dishes and burgers aren't tasty like in California, you really have to search to find restaurants that serve a decent vegetable here

[Orphalesion]

15 hours ago, quiXilver said:

taste varies wildly just like vegetables... grubs and worms can taste buttery and rich and wonderful

crunchy fantastic grasshoppers and crickets in a lovely vinaigrette sauce... mmm yum

As I said, grind them up and press them into some sort of shape that doesn't resemble the original anymore (that's gotta be possible) and I'd be the first in line for some some insect chow. I mean I'm really for it for a variety of reasons, but at the same time I'm incredibly repulsed by every kind of worm, grub and larva. The only kind of animal that actually sends me running. 

But I'm also fairly repulsed by blood and eat meat, because the meat I get in the grocery store or a butcher's shop is so far removed from the bloody animal carcass it originates from that I am not bothered by it, and the same would be true for insects.

I actually tried getting meal worms for cooking, but I just can't find a place that sells them, only on the internet and there they are fairly expensive.

[XenoFish]

10 hours ago, Nzo said:

I am not talking veggie burgers of the 70s. I am talking Veggie burgers of today and the future. 

For example you would never compare the electric cars or more like electric golf carts of yesterday to a Tesla and the same goes with fake meat.

https://www.impossiblefoods.com/

 

That is what I am talking about. A burger that tastes like a burger but is not made from growing and killing animals. It's made at the molecular level from plant proteins etc. Looks, tastes, smells the same but supposedly a lot better for you. As time goes on I hope it gets so ridiculous that people OPT for fake stuff over the real stuff because it is safer and healthier not to mention cheaper. 

I'm talking veggie burgers of today. I used to be vegan.

[quiXilver]

1 hour ago, White Unicorn said:

I could be total vegetarian in California easily. The veggie dishes and burgers were awesome there not mention the juices too! 

Back in the east where I live people are overweight fried meat and potato eaters! The veggie dishes and burgers aren't tasty like in California, you really have to search to find restaurants that serve a decent vegetable here

yea, there's such a market for it, we are swimming in great vegetarian options.

 

Looking back my diet has altered steadily but rather radically over the last six years.

It was gradual and natural, I steadily lost my desire for dairy, meat and processed anything.  At first, it was due to a health issue and I studied food healing to help heal myself without having to resort to pills.  That worked so well and I felt so great that I began tuning in to my body after I ate... as I became more sensitive, I noticed I began choosing food based on how I would feel after I ate, rather than for flavor and taste.

Dairy and red meat are all but gone.  I used to eat meat at every meal, now it's twice a week, maybe.

Processed foods, foods in boxes... processed wheat, processed sugar... all just lacks any gravity now.  There's simply no vitality in it. 

A big bowl of vegetables causes my eyes to widen now.  The levels of vibration in the subtle body are amazing when processing high vitality, fresh food.

  

 

 

[Matt221]

Slugs aren't to tasty and neither are lug worms,but get a ragworm down ya before he nips and you'll want more 

[XenoFish]

I wonder if I should open up a maggot farm?

[oldrover]

3 hours ago, Matt221 said:

Slugs aren't to tasty and neither are lug worms,but get a ragworm down ya before he nips and you'll want more 

I'd much rather eat a rag than a lug. Especially one of those big yellowtails. I remember thinking as I put my first hook into one of those, 'I wonder why it's vibrating like that, it's almost as if it's going to explo....'

[oldrover]

22 hours ago, quiXilver said:

I've been saying for decades we could wipe out hunger and increase health if we incorporate insects, seaweed and algae as staples to our diet.

 

 

We eat seaweed here and it is unbelievable. 

[quiXilver]

My wife and son go crazy over it.

My boy takes a package of seaweed to school every single day, no matter what else we put in his lunch, that is always the first item on his list.

[Matt221]

16 hours ago, oldrover said:

I'd much rather eat a rag than a lug. Especially one of those big yellowtails. I remember thinking as I put my first hook into one of those, 'I wonder why it's vibrating like that, it's almost as if it's going to explo....'

LOL been there nice face full of juice or better still ragworm juice in a cut

[khol]

The problem with fake meat is its a misnomer.It either is or it isn't. Its a meat substitute.Its been processed.If I had to chose between this and a natural whole food, in this case bugs, the creepy crawlies win everytime!  I think alot of our repulsion of eating bugs is mainly a cultural disposition and can be overcome.Insects are a natural source of protien and eating them is already practiced by upwards of 2 billion people worldwide...having said that Im holding back on the grasshoppers with coffee this morning!! 

[GlitterRose]

On 5/5/2017 at 6:39 PM, XenoFish said:

Veggie burgers suck. You're better off making a mushroom burger from a Portobello cap that's been soaked in Worcestershire sauce. Which are freaking awesome.

I just ate a veggie burger the other day. They're certainly not the same thing and they don't hold together all that well, but if you're really hungry...it's something to put between a bun. I just piled a bunch of other stuff on it and tried to pretend I was eating a burger. 

[XenoFish]

Want a cheap veggie burger? Just pile lettuce, spinach, and pickles on a bun. Same thing but easier.

A salad on a bun.

[nephili]

I like to put garbanzo beans, onion, carrot, celery and bell pepper in a blender till a paste and add soaked chia seed as a binder. Season, patty out and bake at high heat. It's really good vegan burger.

I guess you could throw in some insects or GMO soy protein if you wanted.

[Gingitsune]

I don't eat vegeburger. when I eat a burger, I eat a burger. When I eat tofu, I make Japanese dishes. I'm getting good with miso soup.

I really don't like he idea of eating insect, but I eat snails, don't ask. 
I guess I would turn vegan rather than eat insects.

[quiXilver]

I enjoy snails... and have come to love clams and mussels steamed in say a nice garlic white wine sauce.... or stuffed with seasonings and baked in butter... but they must be steamed or cooked and that took some doing on my part. 

To enjoy those, I had to get over some of my utter, instinctual revulsion and aversion to raw oysters.  Man they are nasty to me... they seem alien and horrifying in their essence.. lol some innate wrongness... rofl.  so dramatic my reaction to that food, it's fun.

It's still mystifying that my son and wife and anyone is able to relish and adore eating raw oysters.... I mean... dang... I'll knock down a whole grasshopper any day before the the raw alien muscly snot pods that are raw oysters

I'll take grasshoppers and grubs any day compared to raw oysters...

[Sundew]

We already have fake meat, but to name the purveyors of same might result in legal action, so you'll have to guess. 

[quiXilver]

2 hours ago, Sundew said:

We already have fake meat, but to name the purveyors of same might result in legal action, so you'll have to guess. 

i see what you did there...

and it caused me to laugh.

thanks mate!

[oneshot_me]

So how much gas does a cow have than a bison?? They use it be in the millions and now it's cows so how much different is it really?? And not just them but all over the world when the cow has replaced the other animals

[Sundew]

On May 8, 2017 at 7:44 PM, quiXilver said:

i see what you did there...

and it caused me to laugh.

thanks mate!

No worries!

 

[Sundew]

On May 11, 2017 at 7:10 PM, oneshot_me said:

So how much gas does a cow have than a bison?? They use it be in the millions and now it's cows so how much different is it really?? And not just them but all over the world when the cow has replaced the other animals

A relevant question is how much methane do insects generate? Individually it's minute, but collectively there is probably a lot more weight of insects on the planet than there are cows and maybe humans and cows combined. Beetles alone make up 3/4s of all animal species on earth if I remember correctly. Herbivorous insects are consuming the same material as cows and digesting it, likely with gut bacteria to break it down (certainly termites are known for this), so if this reasoning is to "save the planet" from cow farts it's likely misplaced.