Food scientist thinks people should overcome their reluctance to eat maggots that feed on waste

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/30/food-scientist-thinks-people-should-overcome-their-reluctance-to-eat-maggots-that-feed-on-waste.html

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Thanks, but I’ll stick to witchety grubs and crickets

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This is absolutely a good idea and there is no goddam way I’m doing it.

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You go first.

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“It’s estimated that less than half a hectare of black soldier fly larvae”

I’d hope that is distributed, not concentrated in one area

“can produce more protein than cattle grazing on around 1200 hectares of cattle”

Cannibalistic cows?

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I feed a food made of processed soldier fly grubs to my fish – they like it! Surely there’s lots of room for insects in the food chain without humans eating the grubs directly; e.g. as a replacement for fishmeal in aquaculture, or as a supplement in chicken feed.

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I’m going to take the Trump route and disagree with the scientist on this one.

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Crickets are delicious and similarly sustainable! Check out EarthProof Protein (dot) com

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I’m not so picky about where my body’s needs come from. But my wife (chef) has a STRONG phobia of maggots. No problem with tripe or offal, but if it’s bugs or worms then a non-starter.

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People eat hot dogs and chicken nuggets. You process it enough and I’m pretty sure no one could tell the difference. Also there’s less guilt attached. That said I wonder what the PETA campaign would look like.

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PETA’s position is to go vegan.

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Getcha Maggot Dog heah! Red hot Maggot Dogs! Grub these grubs before their gone folks! clicks tongs together twice Eeesh, no takers again. Maybe it’s my pitch?

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Best grub in town?

Grub-hub?

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Yes, this exactly. So many of these articles don’t mention that no, you won’t be popping maggots squirming into you mouth. You dehydrate the larva, grind it into a meal and add it to foods. If I could get food grade BSFL meal I would be eating the shit out of it. You cant get cheaper more environmentally sound protean.

On a side note, I’ve been meaning to start a colony as they will eat anything you give them. All your kitchen scraps can go there instead of to the municipal compost and turn right into food. If you REALLY can’t eat them yourself or your using them as a composting toilet (they will eat poop within 8 hours of… production rather than the 2 years for normal composting) then they can be fed to chickens, fish or hogs as their main food source.

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That article was less than useless.

About 5 lines that actually address insects in the human diet, and the rest is railing against farming.

It neither postulates that vegan diets are a better choice for the environment than insects (complains that shipping them is bad, same applies to a decent part of most vegan diets), or provides any counter except that we should worry about crickets’ desires for a natural life.

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Feed the maggots to chickens and fish. Eat the chicken, eggs and fish.

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Beat me to it; came here to say exactly that. Not quite exactly, I guess, I could imagine eating them if I was in imminent danger starving to death, but aside from that - nope.

Sorta like how locusts are the only kosher-to-eat insect in Jewish tradition, cuz if they come and eat all your crops, what else can you do?

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Don’t shoot the messenger. :slight_smile:
If you didn’t previously know what PETA’s position on insect protein was, now you do.

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I think their position is, even the most ardent animal rights activist has a hard time justifying letting insects “live their full life” :grin:

Ugh I should have guessed they’d already tackled this. This reads about as unhinged as most of their publications.

I got a “vote for the sexiest vegan over 50” popup/lightbox ad when I clicked over to the homepage though. That was mildly entertaining.

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