Makes me think if you can take maggots and make it look like steak would people eat it knowing what it used to be... it's like that video on YouTube of kids watching a guy blend random chicken parts and asking if they'd eat it, then he turns it into a chicken nugget and asks again, all the kids raise their hands.
I think "chicken" nuggets are a better form factor. We already know that most of them are made of meat scraps, and if they're tasty and look "normal" then who's to know ;-)
I'm hoping that cultivated meat can make itself a viable commercial product. And then there's Air Protein, which should be acceptable to all: https://www.airprotein.com/
There was a study in the 90s wherein the authors sterilized a cockroach and dipped it in some juice. Despite knowing the juice was perfectly safe rationally, most people would refuse to drink it. I find myself in that camp.
People also rejected fudge shaped like dog feces or soup stirred with a brand-new flyswatter.
There are diminishing returns to further optimization of lower-climate-impact meat sources. Look at greenhouse gas emissions per 100 grams of protein in various foods:
Beef is really high at 48.89 kg CO2e, but pork is only 7.6 kg CO2e. Farmed fish is 5.98 and poultry is 5.7. If you can get people to switch from high-climate-impact meat to low-climate-impact meat, you've already reaped most of the possible climate gains from dietary change. To meet a given protein consumption target, you cut 88% of the emissions by getting protein from chicken instead of beef. Trying to get people to eat unfamiliar and potentially "icky" protein sources after they've already switched to chicken can only produce minor gains.
Though most people are reacting to the headline about how humans could eat maggots, the article says that these maggots are actually being fed to chickens, farmed fish, and other animals. That approach reduces waste streams, slightly reduces the already-modest climate impact of farmed fish and poultry, and doesn't have the enormous uphill battle toward regulatory and consumer acceptance that direct human consumption would face.
And the problem with those comparisons is that they make it look like everything is swappable without any issue.
Places where we raise cows generally do not support other types of agriculture (especially milk cows in the mountains).
You may stop raising cows, but it doesn't mean you will be able to grow nuts or pulses in the same place. That causes big problems for food security and economic networks.
All the arguments around emissions or caloric efficiency are way too simplistic to accurately describe the problem.
I wouldn’t be so sure about what will happen or not in general, and in that case it’s certainly an option as
- people already do eat maggot without noticing (and pretty sure some *do* notice)
- if you don’t know about cheese you wouldn’t believe I’m eating fat’s mold.
- our siblings ape, pigs and other animals eat them too, it’s a good nutrient source
- someone from the past wouldn’t believe modern humans eat stuff made from petroleum, animals from gigafactories
- being *not-vegan* is like a religion for some and I’m wondering if they would think about cannibalism before realizing they get plenty of nutrients from the plants already on the menu.
These articles have been coming out for I can’t even remember how long - it’s what popular science magazines run when there’s no better news to run. The answer is always the same - no, people are not about to start consuming bugs in large volumes, especially when chicken performs almost as well in feed ratio and produces products that people actually like and consume. Yeah, people always bring up cultures that supposedly love certain insects, but I would bet that those people start eating chicken as soon as it becomes cheap enough. Not to mention that the allergenic potential for insects is almost certainly a lot higher than chicken - I’ve never heard of someone being allergic to chicken, but a ton of people are allergic to shrimp and crab.
At best this is destined to become a potentially higher-quality feed for chickens and pigs.
Somehow I suspect there will be a tech billionaire who will exclusively eat genetically modified maggots while the rest of us will be forced to subsist on chicken.
It’s Logan’s Run to the book. Then they wonder why the west is turning to “crazy populists” when the “sane and democratic” ones go around supporting this kind of stuff…
Investors problems obviously. If you care about the ecological or moral aspect of meat consumption we already have way more than enough affordable/healthy/tasty solutions
Several centuries ago the peasants got uppity. Thought they deserved to eat meat and other decent food. Thought they deserved to wear something other than rags. It wasn't easy to fix, but our masters grinded away this whole time to come up with a solution. You will eat maggots and you will be happy.
We have those maggots (BSFL) sometimes in our compost naturally and I would never eat anything made with them.
The problem is not even the animal/maggot itself but the fact that it consumes ANYTHING. Old apples, coffee grounds, house plants, dead rats, everything.
The incentives to produce them more cheaply by feeding them trash (actual trash not mango peelings) is obvious and just too risky.
When cost is the only reason they matter anyways, why waste money on quality ingredients or good QA?
Readit News
It's the Snowpiercer food bar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKwL5G5HbGA
Some people find him a bit too preachy or wears his heart on his sleeve. However his battles for healthier food in schools is commendable.
I'm hoping that cultivated meat can make itself a viable commercial product. And then there's Air Protein, which should be acceptable to all: https://www.airprotein.com/
There was a study in the 90s wherein the authors sterilized a cockroach and dipped it in some juice. Despite knowing the juice was perfectly safe rationally, most people would refuse to drink it. I find myself in that camp.
People also rejected fudge shaped like dog feces or soup stirred with a brand-new flyswatter.
Have you ever seen the popular Halloween party food "Cat Litter Box Cookies"?
Here's some examples: https://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/302/Litterbox_Cookies...
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/15195/cat-poop-cookies-ii/
In my experience, people don't mind eating them. We served them at a Humane Society event once.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-per-protein-poore
Beef is really high at 48.89 kg CO2e, but pork is only 7.6 kg CO2e. Farmed fish is 5.98 and poultry is 5.7. If you can get people to switch from high-climate-impact meat to low-climate-impact meat, you've already reaped most of the possible climate gains from dietary change. To meet a given protein consumption target, you cut 88% of the emissions by getting protein from chicken instead of beef. Trying to get people to eat unfamiliar and potentially "icky" protein sources after they've already switched to chicken can only produce minor gains.
Though most people are reacting to the headline about how humans could eat maggots, the article says that these maggots are actually being fed to chickens, farmed fish, and other animals. That approach reduces waste streams, slightly reduces the already-modest climate impact of farmed fish and poultry, and doesn't have the enormous uphill battle toward regulatory and consumer acceptance that direct human consumption would face.
Places where we raise cows generally do not support other types of agriculture (especially milk cows in the mountains).
You may stop raising cows, but it doesn't mean you will be able to grow nuts or pulses in the same place. That causes big problems for food security and economic networks.
All the arguments around emissions or caloric efficiency are way too simplistic to accurately describe the problem.
At best this is destined to become a potentially higher-quality feed for chickens and pigs.
The birthrate is reducing everywhere, we produce more food than the current population can eat. The problem is not production, it's distribution.
Deleted Comment
Investors problems obviously. If you care about the ecological or moral aspect of meat consumption we already have way more than enough affordable/healthy/tasty solutions
The problem is not even the animal/maggot itself but the fact that it consumes ANYTHING. Old apples, coffee grounds, house plants, dead rats, everything.
The incentives to produce them more cheaply by feeding them trash (actual trash not mango peelings) is obvious and just too risky. When cost is the only reason they matter anyways, why waste money on quality ingredients or good QA?