Posted on 08/02/2010 3:07:19 PM PDT by Willie Green
The raising of livestock consumes two-thirds of the planet's farmland, and is a major source of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, tons of edible, sustainable protein swarms all around us, free for the taking. In a new policy paper being considered by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Belgian entomologist Arnold van Huis makes the sensible recommendation that the western world eat more insects.
Farming edible insects like mealworms and crickets would produce far less greenhouse gas -- 10 times less methane and 100 times less nitrous oxide -- than the large mammals we currently farm. Insects are metabolically much more efficient, which makes them far cheaper to feed and raise; and, since they're so biologically different from humans, they are less subject to contagious disease scares like mad cow. They are high in protein and calcium, and, with over 1,000 edible species, offer plenty of delicious variety.
In April, the FAO started a pilot locust-farming project in Laos, where entomophagy is not unheard of, but where it's been in decline under the cultural influence of the West. According to the Guardian, 15,000 household farmers already raise locusts in Thailand, and that expertise can be transferred elsewhere.
Introducing a bug-rich diet to the western world might be more of a challenge, although it's certainly not unheard of. A British author named Vincent Holt published an essay advocating it in 1885, along with a nice selection of menus -- moths on toast, anyone? -- in a pamphlet called Why Not Eat Insects?
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
Yeah, I can see the ad campaign now:
“Mealworms. It’s the other other OTHER white meat.”
My little cat is a hunter but I’ve mostly seen her eat bugs. See a cockroach - munch, munch, munch. Then she licks my face. Eeychh!
When I was a kid I got some stickers from a MAD Magazine that were made for sticking on cereal boxes. They said "Now with 50% fewer insect parts than the leading brand!"
UN wants everyone to drop to 3rd World Status...where they do eat bugs and such for sustenance...all part of that social justice and redistribution of wealth garbage huh, UN? =.=
I’ve got an idea, it is called the China test. Every thing that the United Nations promotes when it comes to weapons, energy, food production, ‘green house’ gases, water usage, sewage treatment, etc, if you get the Chinese government to agree to it, in writing with multi-national inspection then and only then we as Americans will consider their proposal.
This will stop all this bullshi# immediately, because we know that if anything else the Chinese communists are concerned with what is good for their country, or put another way what will give them an advantage over other countries. Go ahead take this ridiculous bug eating idea to the Red Commies and see what they say. The Chinese has a new coal fired power plant to go on line every 28 days, you want us to start eating bugs! The largest consumer of coal in the world. Your ideas are buggy.
The liberals are pied pipers, we ain’t listening!
I don’t like bugs. I suggest the UN eat only bugs.
I dowannatalkaboud giblet gravy, thanks...
When you think about it, insects, crabs, shrimp, and lobster are all part of the Arthropoda Phylum. Why should shrimp be considered excellent food, but not insects?
They haven’t checked the ingredients in non-kosher bologna.
I will have steak someone else can eat the cockroaches.
The UN can KMA.
Why haven’t we run those slimy foreigners out of our country anyway?
I will NEVER eat sea spiders.
“I’ll give you my steak when you take it from my cold, dead hands!”
The elite want us to eat bugs and nothing else. They enjoy good food and we grudgingly eat bugs and worms to survive !
Only the “little people” have to comply with their fantasized rules and regulations !
Even the fewer majority faith references on the allowance of eating insects have it for extreme survival circumstances only.
“An’ when they was no meat we ate fowl. An’when they was no fowl we ate crawdad. An’ when they was no crawdad to be foun’, we ate San’”
- You ate what?
- We ate san’.
- You ate sand?
- That’s right.
Mama would throw the live crawdad
in a pan of boilin’ water.
Well, one day I decided
to make my own crawdad.
And I threw it in a pot,
without the water, you see?
And it was just like makin’ popcorn, you see?
Reminds me of that old bumper sticker: Save a tree, eat a beaver.
My cats just torture the roaches, but don’t eat them.
I routinely find roaches stuck on their back playing dead.
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