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?
People acting like you can't get protein from fruit, veg, and legumes. You don't need anywhere near the amount of protein that has been touted the past decade.
There's an incredible piece of biotechnology that converts insects and inedible seeds and detritus into delicious, perfectly edible protein pods with very high efficiency. And at EoL, any of the pods can be used to replace the original, which itself is also edible and delicious. It's fully automated and requires almost no human labor to maintain. This is my preferred method of superfood consumption.
Maggots are commonly found on rotting food or dead animals. They're a clear indication that decomposition has set in.
Of course this only applies to species of flies that go for these food sources. Most fly larva (really most insect larva) look like "maggots", including for species like hoverflies that eat nectar. But these "maggots" are usually hidden in the soil or on the plant and don't show up in one place in large quantities. Thus there's an obvious association between maggots and rot.
Can anyone provide a coherent explanation for why we shouldn't just skip the inefficient step where we convert plant protein to animal protein and just eat a bowl of black beans instead of a maggot concoction? Couldn't we just go for beans if we want supply chain efficiency or meat if we aren't optimizing for that?
The article mentions a 900-ton pile of mango detritus. Exactly how many mango skins and seeds a day would you be willing to eat? (They contain urushiol which causes blisters. Don't eat any!)
But that's just one part of it: this turns waste product into food. Beans don't provide complete amino acids. I don't know if maggots do, but many types of animal flesh do.
Also, most people crave diversity in their diets. How long are you willing to live on an all-bean diet, even if we make it nutritionally complete? Diversity in diet is ideal for humans.
This is missing the forest for the trees. Coal plants alone accounted for 20% of emissions back in 2018, so I assume the fraction is only slightly lower now. Like so badly - coal is 5% of energy generation worldwide, yet the entire emissions from electricity generation is only 25%!
Agriculture is also responsible for its own level of emissions but only because the world has been conditioned to dairy, and by consequence beef. Those are hard dietary habits that won't be changed any time soon. Also rice cultivation is responsible for GHG emissions, so are we going to let 80% of the planet starve?
If it {tastes,feels,looks} like eating shrimp, I don't see why people wouldn't go for it. After all, much weirder looking bugs of the sea (e.g. lobsters, crabs) are considered luxuries.
I remember a NileRed video where he explained that the taste of chicken soup comes from the specific combination of amino acids, which he demonstrated by mixing chemically produced amino-acids in the exact same proportion, and the end results tasted the exact same.
Watching millions evaporate on new protein sources that people. don't. want. is the ultimate example of founder hubris. Imagine thinking you can overcome the subconcious ick factor most humans have with a product made of nightmare fuel. I kind of appreciate the delusion and commitment but these companies have failed to make insects a) more palatable than traditional food b) cheaper than traditional food c) healthier than traditional food.
This wouldn't happen unless they think they've cracked the code to mass control of human minds and spirits. They believe (correctly?) that not only can they do that, but that they're so far along in their mastery that they can announce this shit right now without causing themselves problems.
If you disagree, perhaps you're just one of the outliers they have determined they can ignore (for now). We see these threads on HN once a month, at least, and the comments are overwhelmingly positive. I will take a 15 point updoot hit just for the comments in this thread before midnight.
My take is to use cultivated insects (Black Soldier Flies), duckweed, and algae as protein feedstock for chickens and fish. Along with more humane husbandry of them it should be an acceptable path for protein for people.
Related question, why has there been a sudden rise of everything needing to be labelled as having "x amount of protein" now? It seems like the last 12-18 months it really creeped into all supermarket labelling
"These guys are much better than houseflies... ...They don’t transmit disease" -- My worry is for houseflies to sneak inside and cross-breed and "poison the well", is that possible?
barely off topic, but we feed dehydrated mealworms to the birds outside and they love them. always fun checking out of Tractor Supply saying "nothing goes better on yogurt".
Unsurprisingly, the name InsectiPro (the company featured in the magazine article) comes up in publications from the Gates foundation, the WEF and the World Bank.
NGOs trying to convince the rest of us to eat bugs to save the planet, while many of their members are soon going to be boarding private jets headed to Davos. Hard pass - I'll continue enjoying eating meat thank you.
Strangely enough, I have no problems with animals eating maggots. I could eat a chicken that ate bucketfuls of potato beetle larvae. But eating maggots is ever so closer to their own food.
Plenty of tourists enjoy eating deep-fried maggots in Thailand every year. But Thai people don't, they find the idea as disgusting as anyone else does.
However if they can be turned into nondescript foodstuffs like protein powder, I figure it will come down to cost; can it be sold cheaper than plant based powders?
FTFY "Next Superfood for Poor Humans". Hollywood and politicians will shame us for not switching to maggots and roaches that are good for planet, from their jets and $20KK mansions.
Tech bros want to feed humans intellectual AI slop and physical maggot slop. Ironically, during the Biden years MAGA complained daily that the WEF wants to make people "eat ze bugs".
It's the Snowpiercer food bar
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