I’ve read about entreprenuers looking industrial-scale nutritious-larva production. Input: Livestock waste, corn stubble, other trash. Customer: Fish farms, chicken feed manufacturers.
Makes sense to raise your own if you have enough critters that eat them.
I think I’d pass on eating them myself.
You first, Mark.
I would not hesitate even for a second to eat a handful of these. And if they were affordable (are they), I’d probably buy/grow them in bulk.
I know a guy who learned how to raise these to feed his chameleons. They are apparently delicious, if you’re a lizard.
I borrowed a handful one Halloween to put in the box with my real human skull as an “I dare you to look inside” peepshow at a block party. It was very effective, as the worms liked to crawl out of the eye sockets.
That seems a little complex…
here is my mealworm farm -
And my turkey chick butters who is confounded by the glass.
But seriously, all you need is a container of some kind. Some starter worms and food. In this case I’m using old game bird feed. I’ve used wheatgerm before. Give them a slice of potato every so often and you’re good to go. Just feed your pets the worms while leaving the beetles and pupae alone and you’ll have a happy colony.
Anybody got any idea how they are as human food? I have noticed that at least in European/colonial culture there seems to be a strong aversion to insects as food. Years ago I used to try to find information about cultural reasons for this and not find any. These days I find more articles saying that is a progressive practice, but still no real background as to reasons why some cultures eat them versus others being repulsed by the idea.
From what I vaguely remember reading, they’re perfectly fine fried; crunchy and fluffy, not much taste.
Recipes or gtfo.
Decrease its agricultural subsidies?
Also, Leviticus 11:21-25.
You named your turkey “butters?” How deliciously evil. Is he a pet, a future meal or both?
Both, I don’t have any issues with treating my future meals as pets until future mealtime. Besides, if they’re a pet then they won’t run when it’s time for the inevitable betrayal.
I hear to many people say they can’t eat their turkey on account of not being able to catch them. But if they won’t allow you to get close enough to catch then they are neither a pet nor a meal, and are therefore pretty worthless.
Weren’t guns invented to solve this kind of a problem?
Where my mother used to work, turkeys would wander in and squat in the parking lot during the day. People used to drive right up to them, honking their horns, and they wouldn’t budge for anything. I recommended that she bring some home, but she wasn’t interested in catching a big ugly bird to drive 20 miles in her car, to have to kill, pluck, and dress it after work.
Back in college I did a report on insects in human nutrition, part of which involved cooking and eating both crickets and mealworms. The crickets were pretty bland; the mealworms, dry-roasted, tasted astonishingly like Doritos.
Insects have recently started making more inroads into Western cuisine in less “recognizable” forms such as cricket flour. I think part of the cultural aversion has just been the “eww bugs are gross” reaction, but another part has been that most Westerners who eat animals prefer not to think about what their meal looked like when it was alive. That’s why supermarket chickens don’t come with the heads or feet attached, and why animal parts that are especially visually identifiable like ears, feet, snouts, etc. are either sold abroad or used for pet food.
As if I needed more reasons to think Westerners were weird…
Don’t tell the Vietnamese folks we buy the roasted ducks from!
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