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I can't help but feel that there's a very good reason that many of us have a deep, instinctive revulsion to eating insects. I am not familiar with the research,

by dcx 4y ago

I can't help but feel that there's a very good reason that many of us have a deep, instinctive revulsion to eating insects. I am not familiar with the research, but my feeling is that this is probably an evolved builtin (I recall that the aversion to snake movement has been shown to be). And regardless, there are very few cultures globally which engage in this practice. This seems surprising considering they are a source of protein that is widely available, and seems reasonably easy to farm. And so to me, Chesterton's Fence suggests we should be very careful about making sudden moves here. For example: > Parasites were detected in 244 (81.33%) out of 300 (100%) examined insect farms. In 206 (68.67%) of the cases, the identified parasites were pathogenic for insects only; in 106 (35.33%) cases, parasites were potentially parasitic for animals; and in 91 (30.33%) cases, parasites were potentially pathogenic for humans. Edible insects are an underestimated reservoir of human and animal parasites. [...] Conducted parasitological examination suggests that edible insects may be the most important parasite vector for domestic insectivorous animals. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6613697/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6613697/

droopyEyelids 4y ago
The parasites-in-insects argument feels _so naive_ to me, unless the people making it are vegetarians. Most every animal we eat for meat is host to many fearsome parasites, and most of the worst pandemics in history resulted from human/animal contact during domestication. That is the baseline!
permo-w 4y ago
an important question is how many of those parasites survive cooking or freezing? plenty of the fish and meat we eat has parasites before it’s cooked or frozen
skissane 4y ago
> > Parasites were detected in 244 (81.33%) out of 300 (100%) examined insect farms Humans can get parasites from eating the meat of mammals, such as pork or beef. Is there any reason to believe that parasites in insects pose a greater human health risk than those in mammals? If anything, I'd suspect mammalian parasites are a bigger risk, since they are more likely to thrive in a human host – we are mammals after all.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Depending on country the meat supply is actually extremely clean of everything harmful. Destroying all animals is quite common solution when something harmful is found is very common tactic. And with some parasites the wild animals posses much higher risk than farmed.
  - PradeetPatel 4y ago
    Could the same argument be applied to edible insects too? I recall having deep fried silkworm pupae when I was working in China and they weren't as bad as I first anticipated, plus they were raised in a sterile and tightly controlled environment, so I was told.
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      Meat is on the inside of the animal, so proper preparation is important in making sure external contaminants aren't introduced. Insects, on the other hand, are consumed whole. There's no getting around the fact that you are eating the part of the thing that walked and wallowed in it's own shit. Pupae are an interesting exception, perhaps, though for the most part when talking edible insects I suspect people think crickets and the like.
  - diceduckmonk 4y ago
    > the wild animals posses much higher risk than farmed I think the opposite is true for salmon
- agumonkey 4y ago
  > If anything, I'd suspect mammalian parasites are a bigger risk, since they are more likely to thrive in a human host – we are mammals after all. I could hold the opposite side, saying that our immune system is also better suited to fight against them rather than totally different parasites.
graderjs 4y ago
many of us have a deep, instinctive revulsion to eating insects This could be cultural blindness, there's probably lots of places outside of your own culture that find eating insects the best thing ever. As hard as that may be for you to imagine, given your experience, which as it is linked to the culture/s you have lived in, is naturally limited. Some examples that occur to me: - Many Israelis may find eating pork disgusting - Many North americans may find eating livestock intestines disgusting - Many Anglo-saxons may find eating chicken feet disgusting - Many non-Nordic folk may find eating putrid-smelling fermented fish (one is: Surströmming) disgusting - Many non-South americans may find eating hamster meat disgusting Yet for the people actually in those cultures they probably find it the best thing ever. So I think it's mostly cultural (and temporal) blindness. Here's some more ideas: - "For Most People, Eating Bugs Is Only Natural" https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/eating-bugs-cultural-cuisine https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/eating-bu... - "Eating insects has long made sense in Africa. The world must catch up" https://theconversation.com/eating-insects-has-long-made-sense-in-africa-the-world-must-catch-up-70419 https://theconversation.com/eating-insects-has-long-made-sen... I think cultural food preferences are probably strongly linked to food-source availability. For anyone thinking I'm pushing some ideology, or food-preaching, cool your heels: I'm just stating some facts and making a point about cultural relativism. When you use the world "normal" (especially for food), you probably speak with ignorance of other parts of the world.
- Natsu 4y ago
  Most of those will make you sick without special preparation, so pointing at variation in taste across cultures that have (sometimes by necessity) found ways to safely eat those things isn't contradicting the idea that our sense of disgust is an evolved trait to keep us away from things that are likely to lead to disease.
- wowokay 4y ago
  That is true, I’d be more curious about the food source evolution. Even in this article the writer pointed out that it was a tradition and that sourcing the wasps was getting harder each year due to pesticides. Does this mean culturally they have moved past eating wasps and moved on to more “normal” food sources? I’ve never thought of eating insects as a primary source of food for a culture unless they were poor and couldn’t afford better foods.
kingkawn 4y ago
Sit down in front of a whole lobster on a plate and tell me we don’t eat insects
- samatman 4y ago
  Lobsters meet neither the colloquial nor the technical definition of an insect. We do call them sea bugs, sure. Show me an insect per se with an edible white tissue the size of my palm and we'll talk about it.
  - kingkawn 4y ago
    Nitpick all you want, but sit down in front of lobster and tell me how insects are gross.
    - Natsu 4y ago
      That would be rather easy for most people, but especially those who don't like lobster. Or shrimp. Or crab. Or fish. Or literally any kind of aquatic food whatsoever, whether salt or freshwater.
  - nobodyandproud 4y ago
    While you’re right… Create an oxygen-rich atmosphere and you can engineer big-enough land insects. See the carboniferous for more details. Also note that if you’re allergic to shrimp or lobster, chances are pretty high that you’ll get a reaction from eating insects. It was an advisory from last year’s cicadae boom in the US.
- x-shadowban 4y ago
  Roaches of the sea
- GordonS 4y ago
  I have this love/hate thing with prawns and lobsters, prawns especially. They taste so, so good, but if I'm presented with them unshelled/unprepared, I have to try hard to silence my revulsion as I pull off insect-like legs while it stares at me with its insect-like beady eyes :(
yreg 4y ago
Compared to other creatures, we find insects alien, scary, disgusting and feel little compassion toward it. It should all be because they are very distant to us genetically. I'm not sure whether there is any evolutionary pressure to develop that general 'disgust' into preference to avoid eating it though. Might be a side effect as well.
jrochkind1 4y ago
> there are very few cultures globally which engage in this practice. I don't think this is true. > Entomophagy is scientifically described as widespread among non-human primates and common among many human communities.[3] The scientific term describing the practice of eating insects by humans is anthropo-entomophagy.[7] The eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults of certain insects have been eaten by humans from prehistoric times to the present day.[8] Around 3,000 ethnic groups practice entomophagy.[9] Human insect-eating (anthropo-entomophagy) is common to cultures in most parts of the world, including Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Eighty percent of the world's nations eat insects of 1,000 to 2,000 species… > In some societies, primarily western nations, entomophagy is uncommon or taboo.[13][14][15][16][17][18] Today, insect eating is uncommon in North America and Europe, but insects remain a popular food elsewhere, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy
rwmj 4y ago
As an aside, if you wish to put your revulsion to parasites to a very visceral test, I can highly recommend the Meguro Parasitological Museum in Tokyo (when Japan finally opens up again). It's absolutely fascinating. https://www.tofugu.com/travel/parasite-museum-tokyo/ https://www.tofugu.com/travel/parasite-museum-tokyo/
belter 4y ago
"The possible dangers of eating insects" - https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/opinion/by-invitation/the-possible-dangers-of-eating-insects/ https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/opinion/by-invitation/the-po...
lawrenceyan 4y ago
Crush it up in a blender. High enough temperatures. You're left with mostly protein, some carbohydrates, and lipids. Also assuming this would be an industrial farming practice given eating insects is optimizing for the efficiency/productivity part of the spectrum, any insects would most likely be grown under sterile / clean-room like conditions.

by dcx 4y ago

droopyEyelids 4y ago

The parasites-in-insects argument feels _so naive_ to me, unless the people making it are vegetarians. Most every animal we eat for meat is host to many fearsome parasites, and most of the worst pandemics in history resulted from human/animal contact during domestication. That is the baseline!

permo-w 4y ago

an important question is how many of those parasites survive cooking or freezing? plenty of the fish and meat we eat has parasites before it’s cooked or frozen

skissane 4y ago

> > Parasites were detected in 244 (81.33%) out of 300 (100%) examined insect farms Humans can get parasites from eating the meat of mammals, such as pork or beef. Is there any reason to believe that parasites in insects pose a greater human health risk than those in mammals? If anything, I'd suspect mammalian parasites are a bigger risk, since they are more likely to thrive in a human host – we are mammals after all.

Ekaros 4y ago
Depending on country the meat supply is actually extremely clean of everything harmful. Destroying all animals is quite common solution when something harmful is found is very common tactic. And with some parasites the wild animals posses much higher risk than farmed.
- PradeetPatel 4y ago
  Could the same argument be applied to edible insects too? I recall having deep fried silkworm pupae when I was working in China and they weren't as bad as I first anticipated, plus they were raised in a sterile and tightly controlled environment, so I was told.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    Meat is on the inside of the animal, so proper preparation is important in making sure external contaminants aren't introduced. Insects, on the other hand, are consumed whole. There's no getting around the fact that you are eating the part of the thing that walked and wallowed in it's own shit. Pupae are an interesting exception, perhaps, though for the most part when talking edible insects I suspect people think crickets and the like.
- diceduckmonk 4y ago
  > the wild animals posses much higher risk than farmed I think the opposite is true for salmon
agumonkey 4y ago
> If anything, I'd suspect mammalian parasites are a bigger risk, since they are more likely to thrive in a human host – we are mammals after all. I could hold the opposite side, saying that our immune system is also better suited to fight against them rather than totally different parasites.

graderjs 4y ago

many of us have a deep, instinctive revulsion to eating insects This could be cultural blindness, there's probably lots of places outside of your own culture that find eating insects the best thing ever. As hard as that may be for you to imagine, given your experience, which as it is linked to the culture/s you have lived in, is naturally limited. Some examples that occur to me: - Many Israelis may find eating pork disgusting - Many North americans may find eating livestock intestines disgusting - Many Anglo-saxons may find eating chicken feet disgusting - Many non-Nordic folk may find eating putrid-smelling fermented fish (one is: Surströmming) disgusting - Many non-South americans may find eating hamster meat disgusting Yet for the people actually in those cultures they probably find it the best thing ever. So I think it's mostly cultural (and temporal) blindness. Here's some more ideas: - "For Most People, Eating Bugs Is Only Natural" https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/eating-bugs-cultural-cuisine https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/eating-bu... - "Eating insects has long made sense in Africa. The world must catch up" https://theconversation.com/eating-insects-has-long-made-sense-in-africa-the-world-must-catch-up-70419 https://theconversation.com/eating-insects-has-long-made-sen... I think cultural food preferences are probably strongly linked to food-source availability. For anyone thinking I'm pushing some ideology, or food-preaching, cool your heels: I'm just stating some facts and making a point about cultural relativism. When you use the world "normal" (especially for food), you probably speak with ignorance of other parts of the world.

Natsu 4y ago
Most of those will make you sick without special preparation, so pointing at variation in taste across cultures that have (sometimes by necessity) found ways to safely eat those things isn't contradicting the idea that our sense of disgust is an evolved trait to keep us away from things that are likely to lead to disease.
wowokay 4y ago
That is true, I’d be more curious about the food source evolution. Even in this article the writer pointed out that it was a tradition and that sourcing the wasps was getting harder each year due to pesticides. Does this mean culturally they have moved past eating wasps and moved on to more “normal” food sources? I’ve never thought of eating insects as a primary source of food for a culture unless they were poor and couldn’t afford better foods.

kingkawn 4y ago

Sit down in front of a whole lobster on a plate and tell me we don’t eat insects

samatman 4y ago
Lobsters meet neither the colloquial nor the technical definition of an insect. We do call them sea bugs, sure. Show me an insect per se with an edible white tissue the size of my palm and we'll talk about it.
- kingkawn 4y ago
  Nitpick all you want, but sit down in front of lobster and tell me how insects are gross.
  - Natsu 4y ago
    That would be rather easy for most people, but especially those who don't like lobster. Or shrimp. Or crab. Or fish. Or literally any kind of aquatic food whatsoever, whether salt or freshwater.
- nobodyandproud 4y ago
  While you’re right… Create an oxygen-rich atmosphere and you can engineer big-enough land insects. See the carboniferous for more details. Also note that if you’re allergic to shrimp or lobster, chances are pretty high that you’ll get a reaction from eating insects. It was an advisory from last year’s cicadae boom in the US.
x-shadowban 4y ago
Roaches of the sea
GordonS 4y ago
I have this love/hate thing with prawns and lobsters, prawns especially. They taste so, so good, but if I'm presented with them unshelled/unprepared, I have to try hard to silence my revulsion as I pull off insect-like legs while it stares at me with its insect-like beady eyes :(

yreg 4y ago

Compared to other creatures, we find insects alien, scary, disgusting and feel little compassion toward it. It should all be because they are very distant to us genetically. I'm not sure whether there is any evolutionary pressure to develop that general 'disgust' into preference to avoid eating it though. Might be a side effect as well.

jrochkind1 4y ago

> there are very few cultures globally which engage in this practice. I don't think this is true. > Entomophagy is scientifically described as widespread among non-human primates and common among many human communities.[3] The scientific term describing the practice of eating insects by humans is anthropo-entomophagy.[7] The eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults of certain insects have been eaten by humans from prehistoric times to the present day.[8] Around 3,000 ethnic groups practice entomophagy.[9] Human insect-eating (anthropo-entomophagy) is common to cultures in most parts of the world, including Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Eighty percent of the world's nations eat insects of 1,000 to 2,000 species… > In some societies, primarily western nations, entomophagy is uncommon or taboo.[13][14][15][16][17][18] Today, insect eating is uncommon in North America and Europe, but insects remain a popular food elsewhere, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy

rwmj 4y ago

As an aside, if you wish to put your revulsion to parasites to a very visceral test, I can highly recommend the Meguro Parasitological Museum in Tokyo (when Japan finally opens up again). It's absolutely fascinating. https://www.tofugu.com/travel/parasite-museum-tokyo/ https://www.tofugu.com/travel/parasite-museum-tokyo/

belter 4y ago

"The possible dangers of eating insects" - https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/opinion/by-invitation/the-possible-dangers-of-eating-insects/ https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/opinion/by-invitation/the-po...

lawrenceyan 4y ago

Crush it up in a blender. High enough temperatures. You're left with mostly protein, some carbohydrates, and lipids. Also assuming this would be an industrial farming practice given eating insects is optimizing for the efficiency/productivity part of the spectrum, any insects would most likely be grown under sterile / clean-room like conditions.