Insects as food ?

tapzilla2k

This is a real possibility going forward, as the size of our population is predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050. Which will put even more pressure on our increasingly limited resources. The advantages of Insects are they emit fewer gasses and require less intensive farming than Cows and pigs etc
This is a sort of taboo subject in the West, but a lot of other countries don't blink an eye at eating bugs. The idea makes me feel queasy, but if it's a choice between starving or eating, then I'd plump for the eating.

The following links have graphic pictures of fried bugs -
Of course we don't want to eat bugs. But can we afford not to? | Life and style | The Observer
Insects could be the planet's next food source... even if that gives you the creeps | Life and style | The Observer
Edible Insects: Gross-Out or Global Food Solution? by Dawn Starin — YES! Magazine
Why Insects Should Be in Your Diet | The Scientist Magazine®

Though as this article points out, we already eat products that have insects in them - BBC Food - Eating insects: Would you cook with grubs?

So would you eat insects ? Do you think we need to produce more food in the UK so we can depend less on imports ? Or will our politicians drag their feet on the issue and bow to the food industries demands ?

sidicks

Here's Tim Worstall's take on the Observer article.....

Questions in the Observer we can answer

karkus30

Same old 'limited resources'. The very same ones that we had when the world population was 1/10 what it is now. We are experiencing the biggest epidemic in obesity across the west and are throwing away tons of food because EU directives tell us a banana has to be a certain shape, throwing away tons of small fish and introducing fishing quotas, preventing imports from Africa and letting tons of good food rot. We don't have limited resources we have poor economic thinking. No doubt its 'peak cucumber' next up.

What is stupid is the production of water intensive cattle in drought zones such as Australia.

la gran siete

there are few things I turn my nose up to. I am afraid insects would be one of them.How about krill instead?

Trollslayer

Krill would be asier to harvest efficiently.
How would you farm insects efficiently?

tapzilla2k

Ah one has ones head in the sand and has not looked at the work of biologists. Lose the bees, wave bye bye to a lot of crops etc
Food waste ? That's driven by the Economics of the food supply chain, the free market at work. Unless it's the EU's quota system.....

Wild Weasel

In a very small farm.

pragmatic

Bees aren't the only pollinating animals, grains and grasses would be fine too, so plenty to feed cattle.  Plenty of scurvy as we'll not have much fruit .

we'd be better off having vertical fields, fed using electricity for light.  We already grow apples in the UK using hydroponics, so don't even need soil.

I doubt we'll need to eat insects as long as we dont face another dark age.

karkus30

And if the Sun goes Nova, we get hit by a comet, a virus etc etc.

Plants have been around a lot longer than we have and pollination was not a mistake but evolution at work. Plants are good at surviving.

pandemic

Consider last year in February the media reported a burger grown from stem cells in a Petri dish I would like to think that in the future (probably a long way away) we could do without slaughter houses and such. No more having to kill live stock, much reduced CO2 emission (CH4 in truth as methane from cows is the biggest carbon contributor). You'd have your "vegy" meat and avoid those pesky insect.