Cooking with Insects

Spike one of many · 5 juni 2024

Not all of us are vegan or vegetarian but we all hate how animals have to suffer being kept in cages, batteries, pens, etc. This may be a good alternative and the food of the future. Insects use up less space, use less water, and emit far less greenhouse gases. And the meals he creates with these bugs look and taste delicious!

Here's the quoted info from the youtube channel:

Nobody ↑ :

Please be advised that like certain shellfish, some people may be unable to safely consume insects due to dietary allergies. Take a deep breath and come prepared with an open mind because today Joseph Yoon from Brooklyn Bugs is teaching us how to eat (almost) every edible insect there is. Now, we know what you're thinking - aren't tarantulas and scorpions arachnids, not insects? Also, why are you doing this Epicurious? First, yes but come on. And second - trust us. A vital and ecologically important world of food can be yours to enjoy with just a little guidance.

Click to expand...

Starfighter · 5 juni 2024

If it can help people survive (not all places have access to good, affordable, sources of nutrition) then good, but it surprices me to what lengths some people are willing to go to avoid eating beans. Like they rather eat insects than go vegan.

Spike one of many · 5 juni 2024

I'm only just learning about this stuff but there are many benefits. Besides being a good food source for people (insects are high in protein & amino acids, vitamins, minerals, "unsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids" and low in fat).
Good for the environment: "Insect farming can be a more sustainable practice because insects don’t need much space, can live under all sorts of conditions and easy to feed."
They are versatile, abundant, and taste great.

Here's an article from They’re Healthy. They’re Sustainable. So Why Don’t Humans Eat More Bugs?

(I've left the spaces intentionally to make it easier to read)

Nobody ↑ :

They’re Healthy. They’re Sustainable. So Why Don’t Humans Eat More Bugs?

Sylvain Hugel is one of the world’s foremost experts on crickets of the Indian Ocean

Islands. So when he received an email from a fellow entomologist in March 2017 asking

for help identifying a species in Madagascar that could be farmed for humans to

consume, he thought it was a joke. “I’m working to protect those insects, not eat them,”

the French academic responded tartly.

But the emails from Brian Fisher, an ant specialist at the California Academy of

Sciences, in San Francisco, kept coming. Fisher had been doing fieldwork in

Madagascar when he realized that the forests where both he and Hugel conducted much

of their research were disappearing. Nearly 80% of Madagascar’s forest coverage has

been destroyed since the 1950s, and 1-2% of what remains is cut down each year as

farmers clear more trees to make room for livestock. The only way to prevent this, Fisher

told Hugel in his emails, was to give locals an alternative source of protein. “If you want to

be able to keep studying your insects, we need to increase food security, otherwise there

will be no forest left,” Fisher wrote.

His proposal was insect protein. More than two-thirds of Madagascar’s population

already eat insects in some form, usually as a seasonal snack. If there were a way to turn

that occasional snack into a regular meal by making it easily available, it could help ease

pressure on the island’s threatened forests. Crickets, which are high in protein and other

vital nutrients, were already being farmed successfully in Canada for both human and

animal consumption. Surely Hugel, with his vast knowledge of Indian Ocean crickets,

could help identify a local species that would be easy to farm, and, more importantly,

might taste good?

For Hugel, his scientific curiosity competed with squeamishness. He knew that crickets

were healthy, and that they were high in protein, iron and vitamin B-12. But the

psychological barriers were equally high. He started with a roasted, salted cricket. It took

three attempts before he could relax enough to actually taste, chew and swallow the

cricket. To his surprise, it was good. Really good. Three years later, he laughs at the

memory of his first foray into entomophagy. “It changed my life,” he says via video chat

from his home in France.

Insects are now a regular part of his daily meals. He spoons cricket powder over his

morning yogurt, sprinkles larvae over his salads like bacon bits, and fries up frozen

crickets for supper. It also changed the direction of his academic research. While he is

still discovering new cricket species, he now regularly publishes papers on the nutritional

value of edible insects and findings about best farming practices.

Meanwhile, the cricket farm he helped Fisher launch is up and running in Madagascar’s

capital Antananarivo, producing several pounds of ground cricket meal a day. The

protein-packed, fiber-rich powder is now being used by international aid agency Catholic

Relief Services for country-wide famine relief projects, as well as in school lunch

programs and tuberculosis treatment centers where patients often struggle to get

adequate nutrition.

In June, Valala Farms, named after the local word for cricket, will expand onto an even

bigger campus, with 25,000 square feet dedicated to cricket cultivation (enough to

produce 31,000 pounds of powder each year, or about 551,000 meals), as well as an

educational program to train future cricket farmers. The attached research center is

tasked with identifying which of Madagascar’s 100 or so edible bugs have the right

combination of taste, healthiness and farmability. “For me entomophagy is the very

solution for Madagascar,” says Hugel. “There is no way to save the forests without taking

care of the people who live near them, and that means giving them food security.”

A six-legged solution to world hunger

In seeking to protect Madagascar’s forests, Fisher and Hugel may have found a solution

to one of the world’s most pressing problems. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture

Organization [FAO] says that agricultural production worldwide will have to increase by

70% in order to feed a global population expected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050. Yet

agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of natural destruction, threatening 86% of the

28,000 species most at risk of extinction, according to a new report by the UK-based

policy institute Chatham House and the UN environment program.

Demand for animal protein in particular is increasing the strain on the environment: 80%

of the world’s farmland is used to raise and feed livestock, even though animals only

account for 18% of global calorie consumption. Decreasing meat production, says the

report, would remove pressure to expand livestock operations while freeing up existing

land to restore native ecosystems and increase biodiversity.

There is a sustainable alternative to going meat-free, the FAO says: edible insects.

Grasshoppers, crickets and mealworms are rich in protein, and contain significantly

higher sources of minerals such as iron, zinc, copper, and magnesium than beef. Yet

pound for pound they require less land, water and feed than traditional livestock. Insect

farming and processing produces significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions. Not only

do insects produce less waste, their excrement, called frass, is an excellent fertilizer and

soil amender. Agnes Kalibata, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ special

envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit, says that farming insects could provide an

elegant solution to the intertwined crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, hunger and

malnutrition. “Insects are 60% dry weight protein. I mean, honestly, why wouldn’t we use

them?” she says. “But we have to be able to put them in a form that is acceptable to

different cultures and different societies.”

Just as in Madagascar, there are technical and cultural barriers to overcome before bugs

compete with beef (or any other meat) for space on the global dinner plate. While two

billion people, mostly in Africa, Latin America and Asia, already eat insects, in Europe

and North America bugs are more likely to be associated with filth, not food. But attitudes

are starting to change. Canada’s nationwide grocery chain Loblaws has been stocking

locally produced cricket powder since 2018, and in January the European Union food

safety agency declared yellow mealworms safe for human consumption, allowing

producers to sell insect-based foods throughout the continent. Analysts at Barclays Bank

now estimate that the insect protein market could reach $8bn by 2030, up from less than

$1bn today. Still, that’s a fraction of beef’s $324 billion.

In order to compete, manufacturers will have to figure out how to successfully market

bugs to consumers. The sustainability halo and health aspects may be enough for some,

but are unlikely to work on a wider scale, says Cortni Borgerson, an anthropology

professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey. “You can’t just say, ‘this source of

protein you’ve been eating all your life? Well you can’t have that anymore. Here’s another

source, and it’s got six legs instead of four.’ That will never work.” The goal, she says by

video chat from New Jersey, should be “to find something that people would rather be

eating, or would like just as much.” In other words, insects have to taste at least as good

as what they are meant to replace.

In the taste stakes, crickets still come up short. Fried and dusted with chili lime or nacho

spice, they don’t taste much different from say, corn nuts or extra crispy shrimp. In powder

form, it has a mild, nutty flavor and is best used like a protein boost, sprinkled over

porridge, stirred into a vegetarian chili or folded into banana bread batter. Devotees say

they can’t get enough, but even they admit that crickets may have a hard getting past that

most damning of descriptions—a meat alternative. Madagascar, however, has a better

contender: the bacon bug.

A bug fit for a taco

Thirteen years ago, while working on her PHD dissertation in Madagascar’s Masoala

Peninsula, Borgerson encountered a problem. Locals in the UNESCO World Heritage

Site were eating lemurs and other endangered animals to add protein to their otherwise

spare diets. In search of sustainable substitutions, she canvassed residents about other

meats they liked to eat. Chicken and pork often came up, but so did an unfamiliar item:

sakondry. When Borgerson asked what it was, a few of the locals came back with a plate

piled high with plump fried bugs. As a Midwesterner with a rather tame palate, to

Borgerson the idea of eating them was appalling. But her prohibition against refusing a

meal soon kicked in, she recalls. To her surprise, they were delicious, with a taste and

consistency not unlike cubes of pork belly she would fry up back home—“crunchy on the

outside, with that fatty meatiness of bacon in the middle.” Even her kids like it, she says,

“which is saying a lot for American children.”

The villagers loved sakondry, but the bug wasn’t always easy to find. The solution to

stopping lemur hunting, Borgerson realized, was not “four legs bad, six legs good,” but

rather, how to make something the villagers already wanted to eat easier to get.

Sakondry had never been studied, so Borgerson started working with entomologists like

Fisher and local conservation groups to figure out the insect’s life cycle and feeding

habits. Once they discovered the ideal host plant, a kind of native bean, the villagers

started planting it among their crops and along local pathways. With a ready supply of

tasty protein growing just beyond the front door, villagers had less reason to go to the

forest to hunt. Two years on, says Borgerson, who plans to publish a paper on her

findings, lemur poaching in the area has gone down by 30-50%.

Farming insects is not the only solution for Madagascar’s threatened forests, says Tiana

Andriamanana, Executive Director of the Malagasy conservation organization Fanamby.

Education and stronger environmental protection laws are equally important. But it’s a

start. “We need to consider alternatives. The number of people in Madagascar, in the

world, is growing. We can’t continue to eat meat at this rate, but we don’t all want to be

vegan either.”

Sakondry’s taste profile seems tailor-made for the American palate; Borgerson

recommends it as a filling for in tacos. Yet she is not suggesting that midwestern

ranchers switch from bulls to bugs anytime soon. Instead she is pointing to what will

reduce overall meat consumption globally: not prohibition, not guilt, but finding

alternatives that are equally delicious. “You want to make it easier for individuals to make

the choices that they would rather be making,” she says. In Masoala, that was sakondry.

Other communities and regions have different preferences and, especially in

drought-stricken areas, needs. That’s where Fisher, the

ant-specialist-turned-cricket-farmer comes in.

Though he set out to save forests, Fisher’s cricket powder is doing more to alleviate

famine and improve nutrition in Madagascar. His production facility is in the country’s

urban center, far from the forested regions where locals struggle to find alternatives to

hunting and clear cutting grazing grounds. To really have an impact, he says, farmed

insects not only have to be as good as meat, they also have to be easy to grow, and

hyper-local. At the Valala Farms research center, scientists, biodiversity specialists and

entomologists are working together to identify the most promising edible insects for each

climatic region, and figuring out how to farm them at scale. His goal, he says, is to

develop an “insect toolkit” that can be adapted to local needs, whether it’s protein

powder to address malnutrition, a meat alternative, grubs for a chicken farm, or

something that can turn brewery waste into an additive for depleted soils. “We are trying

to take advantage of 300 million years of insect evolution,” he says. “We want that whole

spectrum in our toolkit so that we can go and offer solutions wherever we go, in

Madagascar and across Africa—wherever you have poverty combined with malnutrition

and biodiversity issues.”

And why stop in Africa — or Earth, for that matter? People are so quick to imagine

themselves going to other planets if things get really bad here on Earth, he says. “But

what would you eat on Mars? You would have to design systems to produce protein, and

insects are the most efficient.” He pauses his rapid-fire delivery to make a mental note: “I

should write a proposal to NASA to do research on what insect would be the most

efficient for converting protein in space travel.”

The hatching of a trend

It may be a while yet before sakondry are sent to space. In the meantime, entomophagy

advocates say a cultural shift is already in the works, particularly among the young and

adventurous urbanites who will be setting food trends for generations to come. “It’s not

going to happen overnight, and it’s never going to 100% replace meat, but those of us

who are health conscious and environmentally aware have already started making that

transition,” says biologist Jenna Jadin, who wrote Cicada-licious, a cookbook featuring

cicada dumplings and other treats, just in time for the 2004 hatching of Washington

D.C.’s 17-year cicada cycle (the next hatching is this summer. Get your skillets ready).

The cookbook was semi-satirical, penned in part to demystify the phenomenon. At the

time the idea of eating bugs was outrageous. These days, her local organic grocery store

has a whole aisle dedicated to insect products: chocolate-covered mealworms, cricket

pasta, peanut butter-cricket balls and a line of cricket chips called Chirps. And one of

America’s most famous chefs, José Andrés, has been serving chapulines, sauteed

grasshoppers, at his Mexican restaurant Oyamel since 2004.

Food culture does change. Five hundred years ago, Italians thought tomatoes were

poisonous. In the 1800s, Americans considered lobsters to be trash food and fed them to

prisoners. Few cultures ate raw fish 50 years ago; now sushi is ubiquitous. Insects are

likely to follow the same trajectory, says Fisher, who suggests salt-roasted crickets

served with beer as the ideal “gateway bug.” The sustainability factor, the health aspects,

those are the angles that will make people want to try edible insects, he says. The rest is

easy. “If it’s done right, they will keep coming back for more, because it tastes really

good.”

Click to expand...

TreyofToday · 5 juni 2024

In Raleigh, the museum puts on a BUG FEST every year and has chefs cook up strange insect meals. It is novelty, but I always wondered why things like meal worms can't be hotdogs. Really what's grosser, bugs or pigs' eyeballs? I read about bug based petfood as well. It is summer in NC and we get those palmetto bugs; our frog and lizard absolutely love 'em, but I have not ate one yet. I've had grasshoppers before, and they are very similar to potato chips.

TreyofToday · 5 juni 2024

Starfighter skrev: ↑

If it can help people survive (not all places have access to good, affordable, sources of nutrition) then good, but it surprices me to what lengths some people are willing to go to avoid eating beans. Like they rather eat insects than go vegan.

Click to expand...

I think that I would rather eat any bug over lima beans!

Spike one of many · 5 juni 2024

Starfighter skrev: ↑

but it surprices me to what lengths some people are willing to go to avoid eating beans. Like they rather eat insects than go vegan.

Click to expand...

BTW, beans make you fart all over the place, bad for the environment. You're contributing to global warming with your beans! lol

Rune · 6 juni 2024

Exactly lol. For almond flavour, we have witchetty grubs and also honey ants for honey. There are also green ants in Queensland that are edible and apparently taste like lemons or limes, as well as being high in vitamin C. The drawback is they're aggressive and will bite.

Spike one of many · 6 juni 2024

Rune skrev: ↑

Exactly lol. For almond flavour, we have witchetty grubs and also honey ants for honey. There are also green ants in Queensland that are edible and apparently taste like lemons or limes, as well as being high in vitamin C. The drawback is they're aggressive and will bite.

Click to expand...

Here's a kid in Australia eating a fat, juicy Witchetty grub bush tucker for the first time. You've gotta love this kid. So brave.

Rune · 7 juni 2024

Yep. Got a little fancy there with the lemon and spices, though. We just had them cooked on the coals.

Spike one of many · 7 juni 2024

Here's what a honeypot ant looks like when it's full. Sweet ass .
Were these the ones that you ate?

Rune · 8 juni 2024

Yep, honeypot is just their proper name. Very sweet, but the outside skin is very bitter.

Spike one of many · 8 juni 2024

I guessed as much. Kinda like Deadly Nightshade cherries then - bitter-sweet

Rune · 9 juni 2024

Yep lol. Except they won't kill you with solanine poisoning.

Spike one of many · 9 juni 2024

lol, yeah. However, it may surprise you that the fruits (berries, cherries... whatever you wanna call them - in German the plant is known as Tollkirsche, which means Crazy Cherry, that's why I call them cherries - are not quite as "deadly" as the name suggests. Some friends and I used to eat them on occasion. The most I've eaten were 7 at any one time. But they do make you far-sighted for most of the following day (your near vision will be blurry, so not advisable if you're writing a test the next day) caused by their main active substance, Atropine, as a side-effect (Atropine eyedrops were actually used as a beauty enhancer in the past by some women because it dilates the pupils. (*EDIT: probably that's why the official name of the plant know as Atropa Belladonna) Nowadays it's used to treat various eye conditions, such as myopia).

Rune · 10 juni 2024

Yeah, dose makes the poison lol. Still wouldn't recommend it as a snack. I'd rather potatoes and tomatoes, both members of the nightshade family, but are less likely to be deadly lol.

Spike one of many · 10 juni 2024

True. Also true. I was just reading now: 10-20 berries can kill an adult, whereas 2-4 are enough to kill a child. However one leaf can be enough to kill an adult, the roots being most poisonous.
it's quite a malicious plant for having sweet tasting berries. Because of that the juice was used successfully for assassinations in ancient times.
Interestingly:

Nobody ↑ :

Ruminant animals, ones with more than one stomach and who graze a lot, consume this plant like crazy. Horses, cattle, sheep and goats munch on the deadly nightshade without a problem. Rabbits can also handle this visually beautiful plant.

Click to expand...

Beware The Deadly Nightshade — The Beautiful Plant That Can Kill You

Rune skrev: ↑

I'd rather potatoes and tomatoes, both members of the nightshade family, but are less likely to be deadly lol.

Click to expand...

Yeah, also aubergines (eggplant), and certain pepper varieties, including paprika.
I gotta say though, you seem quite knowlegable on this, at least more than the average person I think. I don't think that's such common knowledge.

Spike one of many · 10 juni 2024

But back to the topic, here's a lovely video of Bear Grylls eating a juicy grub. The point of this thread is actually to encourage people to try this stuff, not to discourage but I can't resist posting this clip
But don't be squeamish, people! What food is punker than this?

Rune · 11 juni 2024

I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to obscure facts and my brother says I'm an encyclopedia of useless information.

That's basically what a witchetty grub is, a beetle larva. Though they're not eaten like that and they taste nice.

Spike one of many · 11 juni 2024

Lol, well those obscure facts could save your life one day. Useless information is knowing the names of Mel B's children; who played who in Days of our Lives and crap like that

Damage control, LOL! Thanks Yeah, though there are some grub species that don't taste so great like in the video above, there are over 344 grub species consumed around the world which do taste good. And although they can be eaten raw, and often are, it's always advisable to cook or roast them first because they can carry parasites.

Here's a cool link for anyone who might find themselves in a survival situation or if you just want to experiment. It has some useful tips on how to catch/trap them, how to prepare them and what to avoid.
12 Edible Bugs That Could Help You Survive

Rune · 12 juni 2024

True LOL

Yeah. Ants can be eaten raw tho, like with the honeypot ants I had or the citrussy green ones in Queensland.

Anarchist News

Logga in / Bli medlem

Logga in/bli medlem

Cooking with Insects

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Starfighter d(^_^)b Staff Member Uploader Admin Team Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

TreyofToday Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

TreyofToday Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Users Who Have Read This Thread (Total: 7)

Anarchist News

Logga in / Bli medlem

Useful Searches

Cooking with Insects

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Starfighter d(^_^)b Staff Member Uploader Admin Team Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

TreyofToday Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

TreyofToday Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Spike one of many Experienced Member Uploader Active Member

Rune Experienced Member Active Member

Users Who Have Read This Thread (Total: 7)