Why Crickets Are Friends, Not Food (PETA vs WEF alert)

PETA ^ | March 9, 2017 | Sirrus Lawson

[BenLurkin]

From the excerpt it almost sounds like they are serious.

[I want the USA back]

Hey peta, here’s how nature works. Animals eat other animals and plants. Plants use animal waste as food.

[Semper Vigilantis]

Crickets should be heard, not eaten.

[Secret Agent Man]

Respect for animals is good.

The group, PETA, is very extremist and is bad.

Dont equate animal respect with an extremist group touting radical views on how to treat animals and food and your entire life.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

My chickens eat crickets. And you want to snatch food from their little beaks?

You monster.

[xp38]

But wait a minute...isn’t dirt just as innocent? :)

[No name given]

My thoughts exactly! In fact, they should stop being promiscuous hedonistic sex worshipping abominations!

[unlearner]

PETA and WEF want to dictate what we eat.

I don’t want either in charge, but if I’m forced to choose the lesser evil, I think it would be PETA.

[Yardstick]

Now this is an intramural feud I did not see coming.

Steel cage match, and let the loser eat grasshopper smoothies for a week...

[Yardstick]

Male crickets will even risk their lives to protect pregnant females.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That reminds me of those white faced bumblebees that’ll buzz you if you’re out in a field. It’s the males defending home and hearth but it turns out they don’t have stingers, so it’s all bluff. You have to admire their bravado to get out there and scare off intruders who are a thousand times bigger than they are totally unarmed.

[real saxophonist]

They actually are food. As in bait, for fish. I used to go out in the backyard and catch crickets, and then take them fishing.

[catnipman]

““Why don’t we just get our protein from fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains instead?””

1. fruits, veggies, legumes, and grains require the consumption of 10-20 times as many carbs compared to eating meat products to obtain the daily required protein ...

2. it’s nearly impossible to obtain the necessary iron from fruits, veggies, legumes, and grains compared to meat products because fruits, veggies, legumes, and grains are very low in iron compared to meat products, AND the iron they do contain is very difficult to assimilate compared to the heme form of iron in meat products ...

3. fruits, veggies, legumes, and grains contain zero vitamin B12 ... period ...

[GenXPolymath]

“Dear God, I agree with PETA for once: Crickets for food is stupid. But only because pigs and chickens are more efficient.”

No chickens take 2lbs of feed to make one lb of live chicken mass if which 75% is edible mass not bone and guts and carcass.

Pigs have a FCR of 3:1 and again that’s live on the hoof not in the pink Styrofoam weights.

Crickets like nearly every insect is 1:1 FCR or better and they are 60+% protein vs 30% or below for chickens and pigs even beef is under 45% by mass.

Black soldier fly larvae are nearly 80% complete protein and they have a proven FCR of 1 or under. They also eat waste that humans cannot eat and turn it into high quality complete protein with all 9 essential amino acids. Same for crickets and grasshoppers they too are all 9 essential amino acids in the right order and qualities for monogastrics.

So no you are wrong chickens and pigs are not more efficient not at all they are 2-3 times worse and provide HALF the protein by mass.

That said most people don’t want to eat larvae or crickets but fish will and fish have a nearly 1:1 FCR as well and their carcass mass to meat yield is the highest of any vertebrate species. Lobsters,crabs ,and prawns also will chow down on feed pellets made from insect proteins instead of wild caught fish meal.

This is the way, feed insects and larvae wastes that humans cannot eat they turn it to high quality complete protein than make pellets with it and feed that to things with a very high FCR that we want to eat.

Some insects like termites can eat cellulose/hemicellulose and lignin think wood,grass,stalks,straw things no monogastric can use for energy or nourishment. Cellulose is the largest biopolymer by mass on earth trillions of tonnes in the total biosphere.we can’t eat a single gram of it. They turn it into high quality complete protein and lipids too otherwise known as food. Thus expanding the food webs total KCal base for monogastric s like ,fish,chickens,pigs,humans too.

There is a more efficient path go even smaller and farther down the food web to single cell proteins like yeast ,bacteria and archea. Those can also be fermented or cultivated on all kinds of waste or cellulose/hemi directly. Again something we cannot eat into something we can.

Simple mathematics will show that 8+ billion humans cannot have western meat consumption levels it is not possible on a planet this size with the existing arable land.. 6 billion humans live in chronic protein deficiency there is not enough land to grow grain to feed cows,chickens and pigs to bring those 6 billion to even EU levels of meat consumption flat out mathematically not possible.

So alternative proteins are here to stay and yes some people will eatzzzzzz bugs a couple billion humans already do on a regular basis. It comes down to cost as more and more humans demand high quality protein prices will rise in a market economy the question you have to ask is will you be able to afford to not eat alternative proteins such as SCP or arthropod based proteins in powdered,shake,prebaked bread,noodle,powerbar ect form. That is exactly what will be the determining factor can you personally afford to not eat alternative proteins.

Used as feed ingredients they should help keep the production cost down for industrialized meat production, aquaculture too. So it’s a race to see which wins.

Then you have biotech getting in the game literally turning thin air into high quality complete protein. This means you can turn electrons from any source into KCals the fundamental shift tech like this makes is world changing.

https://foodplanetprize.org/initiatives/air-protein-making-meat-out-of-air/

These guys are growing plants in the dark off electrons. They can also feed the acetate to SCP yeasts or bacteria or algae and make compete protein, lipids and sugars we monogastrics call that food complete food too you could make kibble for.people a compete daily ration in pellet or gruel form for extra dystopian kick the serfs point’s we know the doomers love to get off to that idea.

https://newatlas.com/science/artificial-photosynthesis-plants-grow-dark/

Here again once you can go directly from electrons to acetate you can feed that to lots of things, cows use acetate for 60% of their metabolic processes it is the primary product of the fermentation of cellulose by their symbiosis between their four stomachs and the trillions of bacteria and protozoa that live there. Yes you can feed cows acetate directly, add in urea for nitrogen and some cellulose for binding fiber and bam cattle feed. These last two biotech is how 6 billion get lifted out of protein deficiency not western style meat production that is simply not possible the math is clear on it.

[GenXPolymath]

“There’s no better source of protein than meat.

Not to mention B12.”

False black soldier fly larvae are upwards of 80% by mass complete protein and they are loaded with b6&12 beef is only 45% or less. So nope wrong. At least be factual. We get it you don’t want to eat bugs fine, but at least be honest.

Larvae make the perfect monogastric feed they have so much protein you have to actually cut it down or you risk blowing out your animals kidneys. Chickens,pigs,fish,prawns have all been raised and raised well on BSF based feeds it is better than fish meal by far and beats soy beans by leaps and bounds.

BSF live on rotting waste that those animals cannot eat they also have the gut track needed to kill every bit of bacteria in that waste. 2/3 of food produced today ends up as food waste we could double the available protein source by feeding that waste to BSF and using that protein directly or feed it to fish with a near 1:1 FCR ratio it still is a loss as fish are only in the 40% protein by mass range not 60+ like some arthropods.

Not wanting to do something is no reason to lie to push an agenda. Arthropods and single cell proteins are king of the hill in mass ratio and extant energy conversion rates bar none,only archea as in blue green algae smash their efficiency.

[GenXPolymath]

Precision fermentation can produce chemically identical molecules to what you are asking about. They DNA is transferred to yeast, fungi or bacteria and they will happily crank out whatever molecules you programmed them too.

Here are some prime examples.

Identical fatty acids to cow butter down to the molecular level.

https://newatlas.com/technology/savor-butter-bill-gates/

Complete chicken tissue and in Israel they are banned for using immortal cell lines so no this is not cancer cells they use growth hormone also from precision fermentation sources.

https://newatlas.com/science/lab-grown-chicken-approval-restaurant/

Grouper cells and meat again DNA cannot tell the difference from the two they both would test and show that species of grouper.

https://newatlas.com/science/steakholder-foods-cultivated-fish-fillets-grouper/

Egg whites down the the molecules chicken product.

https://newatlas.com/science/world-first-chicken-free-egg-white-every-company-macarons/

More egg whites

https://newatlas.com/environment/fungus-ovalbumin-alternative-egg-whites/

Steak from Angus or Kobe beef DNA

https://newatlas.com/science/world-first-lab-grown-rib-eye-steak-3d-bioprinting-aleph-farms/

Another Israeli chicken meat group. Israel is a tiny country with limited water and more limited arable land they are the world leaders in biotech, desalination and drip irrigation with recycled water 95% of every drop of water in Israel is recycled only Las Vegas comes close.

https://newatlas.com/science/future-meats-lab-gown-chicken-breast-costs/

Then you have raw ingredients fermentation for the production of sugars ,starches and proteins which monogastrics call food without any plants ,using only air,water and electrons.

https://newatlas.com/science/artificial-synthesis-starch-from-co2/

https://newatlas.com/science/microbe-protein-food-security/

https://newatlas.com/protein-food-from-electricity/50557/

Of course you can also add protein directly to the grain carbohydrate source as a complete ration, given that artificial photosynthesis can be used to grow the rice on acetate or glucose from air water and electrons. They are correct this is space food too as humans are never taking livestock to space the mass balance is such that is nearly impossible.

https://newatlas.com/science/beef-cells-rice-hybrid-new-protein-rich-food/

There will be 9 billion humans soon enough and there is no mathematical way to let them all have a western meat based diet our planet simply doesn’t have the land, water and fertilizer resources for that, synthetic biology and biotech is the only way or 7 billion need to be removed. This planet can support two billion at EU levels of energy and KCals it’s just cold hard math and it well universal.

[Species8472]

Cricket choir

Want to hear something magical? Experimental director, composer and playwright Jim Wilson recorded the sound of crickets and then slowed down the recording, revealing something so amazing. The crickets sound like they are singing the most angelic chorus in perfect harmony. Though it sounds like human voices, everything you hear is the crickets themselves. There are two tracks, one is played at regular speed and the other is the slowed version. The singing you hear are the crickets only. No instruments or voices were added.

[Species8472]

Cricket choir

Want to hear something magical? Experimental director, composer and playwright Jim Wilson recorded the sound of crickets and then slowed down the recording, revealing something so amazing. The crickets sound like they are singing the most angelic chorus in perfect harmony. Though it sounds like human voices, everything you hear is the crickets themselves. There are two tracks, one is played at regular speed and the other is the slowed version. The singing you hear are the crickets only. No instruments or voices were added.

[dangus]

What you’re missing is that pigs and chickens can consume plant matter that is byproduct of human food consumption. I I’m OK with feeding fish with crickets, but this is why fish isn’t cheaper than chicken. OTOH, I’m surprised that fish has become cheaper than beef, so maybe?

[metmom]

You are the FIRST person who’s ever said that that I have ever heard, to it’s pretty disingenuous to accuse someone of lying when they are stating something they didn’t know to be different and accusing them of *pushing an agenda*.

and I’ve heard a LOT of people talk about B12 sources, most of whom believe in alternative sources. And they never mentioned it.

Nor is there any reason to be snarky and talking down to someone, which the whole tone of your post does.