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Why Insect Farming Is No Silver Bullet in Drive to Wean the World Off Meat
Reuters ^ | March 20, 2025 | Dr Dustin Crummett

Posted on 03/28/2025 1:04:54 PM PDT by nickcarraway

In some regions of the world, wild-caught insects have been a valuable source of protein for centuries. However, the mass farming of insects for food and feed is a modern practice. Over the last decade, the insect farming industry has been hailed as a silver bullet for many of our food system’s problems. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has been a proponent since 2013, when it published a report advocating the potential of farmed insect protein to contribute to global food security.

Things haven’t worked out quite as planned, however, a reality that was brought into stark relief recently by the collapse of insect industry leader Ynsect, which in February filed for insolvency in France, having previously received more than $600 million in investments. A new report I co-authored, opens new tab in the journal npj Sustainable Agriculture, helps explain why insect farming has diverged so far from its initial, rosy image.

As the paper explains, the case for insect farming relied on several assumptions that have not held up in practice. For example, the 2013 FAO report argued for the sustainability of farmed insects partly by comparing their environmental impact to that of conventional livestock. These comparisons remain common in media and industry marketing: Ynsect’s website compares mealworms to alternatives such as beef and pork. But these comparisons are only meaningful if consumers are eating mealworms instead of beef or pork.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Food; Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: eatbugs; eatzebugs; food; greatreset; greennewdeal; insects; mealworms; meat; waronmeat
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To: nickcarraway

Notice they just take for granted that “weaning the world off meat” is a good thing.


21 posted on 03/28/2025 2:33:46 PM PDT by Salman (Lasu Eŭropon bruli!)
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To: nickcarraway

A Federal Judge just ruled that raising insects IS a silver bullet.


22 posted on 03/28/2025 2:34:33 PM PDT by Lazamataz (I'm so on fire that I feel the need to stop, drop, and roll!)
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To: nickcarraway

Burgers on the gas grill tonight just to piss off the leftist morons.


23 posted on 03/28/2025 2:35:43 PM PDT by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: Nervous Tick

“The “drive” to wean “the world” off of meat had a handful of reality gravel thrown into its gearbox. It got derailed!”

The source is behind a pay wallet.

Can y9u cite how9w it got derailed?


24 posted on 03/28/2025 2:52:41 PM PDT by TexasGator (/''1'111'111111111/)
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To: joshua c

“i hear bugs just luv them some globalist snacks”

Kind of like a reverse Fauci Beagle puppy torture thing? I’m good with that.


25 posted on 03/28/2025 2:59:07 PM PDT by dljordan
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To: nickcarraway

I don’t get to the grocery store much, but I went with my wife to Walmart today. She bought some stew meat because she wants to make stew. It was $8-plus a pound, which is outrageous to me. And I was reminded of the conspiracy theories of how “they” want people off meat. I would go vegan before I would eat bugs and worms, though. Or maybe I should take up hunting and fishing.


26 posted on 03/28/2025 2:59:37 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican (God save the United States!)
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To: nickcarraway

Just make everyone get their teeth pulled and hang all dentists. No more meat eating .


27 posted on 03/28/2025 3:01:49 PM PDT by spincaster (ifi)
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To: Lazamataz

That reminds me of when I ate at an Ethiopian restaurant . . but it had a cockroach problem. . . . . . . . they ran out.


28 posted on 03/28/2025 3:14:41 PM PDT by BipolarBob (After my drug test, they either said "Urine Trouble" or You're in trouble". )
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To: TexasGator

Sure. Germany economy. UK deindustrialization, last Welsh steelmaking plant closed. AfD. Trump, Vance, withdraw from Paris Accords. Lee Zeldin at EPA, Chris Wright at DoE. Elites weaning western world off meat while world’s two largest populations build dirty coal plants at breakneck pace. Climatista models fail to have predictive power. And so on and so forth, dumping railcars full of reality gravel in the climatista’s “drive” gearbox. There’s yer “cite”.


29 posted on 03/28/2025 3:16:30 PM PDT by Nervous Tick (Hope, as a righteous product of properly aligned Faith, IS in fact a strategy.)
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To: nickcarraway

Only 5.80 years left.

Trulli
30 posted on 03/28/2025 3:40:15 PM PDT by Jonty30 (I have invented blackened salmon salad by baking it in the oven for too long. )
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To: Nervous Tick

All that was in the article?


31 posted on 03/28/2025 3:53:37 PM PDT by TexasGator (/''1'111'111111111/)
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To: TexasGator

No. So?


32 posted on 03/28/2025 3:59:40 PM PDT by Nervous Tick (Hope, as a righteous product of properly aligned Faith, IS in fact a strategy.)
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To: Nervous Tick

I asked you to cite the article since it was behind a paywall.


33 posted on 03/28/2025 4:03:20 PM PDT by TexasGator (/''1'111'111111111/)
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To: TexasGator

>> I asked you to cite the article since it was behind a paywall.

No, you *stated* that the article is behind a paywall, and you *asked* me this (sic): “Can y9u cite how9w it got derailed?”

I don’t know what the article says, since it’s behind a paywall.

I DO know that the global warming train has trainwrecked, and how it got derailed. That’s specifically what you asked me to cite, and that’s what I cited.


34 posted on 03/28/2025 5:08:50 PM PDT by Nervous Tick (Hope, as a righteous product of properly aligned Faith, IS in fact a strategy.)
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To: KarlInOhio

“no lobsters, crabs, crawfish, and shrimp are not bugs.”

Insects are Hexapoda (6 legs in 3 pairs) , crabs et al. Are Decapods (10 legs in five pairs) both are Arthropods a vast phylum of invertebrates characterized by jointed appendages, segmented bodies, and a hard exoskeleton.

They differ from each other by less than 1% in DNA. So close that it is pretty clear insects descended from Crustaceans being the more evolved form and having larger genomes by chromosome size. Both tell a paleobiologist insects came second. That and aquatic life evolved first. Land scorpions were the first recorded, they very closely resemble Ordovician period eurypterids aka sea scorpions which already had the advanced three segment bodies vs two for Crustaceans.

Hey tell yourself what you need too,but from a DNA standpoint Hexapod vs Decapod is a moot argument. Crab is delicious and so are scorpions or spiders they taste virtually identical when grilled or fried why? Because the protein in the shell is a fraction of a percentage DNA different and the actual protein structures themselves are identical the only way to tell if you shelled the cooked proteins and put them side by side is DNA visual inspection would not show a difference.


35 posted on 03/29/2025 12:42:11 PM PDT by GenXPolymath
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To: Nervous Tick

When these people refer to “the world” they mean the EU + Canada + Australia.

We can’t rescue Canada too soon.


36 posted on 03/29/2025 12:53:37 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et de phrases)
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