Yeah. In college we could gather a lot of crickets easily at the organic gardens with nets. Not enough to live on or anything, but enough for a cool side dish for the whole class.
I’ve also had cookies with earthworms in them (you couldn’t tell), and a yummy nut/seed salad with mealworms or something similar (you could tell, but they tasted good. Not bitter like the cricket flour.)
And I recall there were a bunch of recipes floating around during the last big cicada eruption. A bumper crop, as it were.
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This is such a good point. It’s as though when you are an authoritarian, you can’t imagine change happening any other way but being forced upon you by other authoritarians. In that world view, everything is then a battle to gain power to ensure your desires win. This explains a lot, actually.
I’m not an expert on this, but I think the reason insect meal is considered the best option is because vegetable proteins are not very good for land use, and the sustainability of them is not as clear as we’d like to think. Soy is a high resource crop to grow and it’s not good for much beyond use as a low-density protein source. The same resources and land applied to insects would yield orders of magnitude more protein. Furthermore, vegetable proteins are vitamin deficient, which is why vegans need to be careful about certain B vitamins and such.
The production process of the new meat substitutes is also still up for debate. The Impossible and Beyond products are incredible, but the amount of processing and fancy chemistry involved in making them is pretty extreme. It may not scale well or be sustainable for eight billion people. I don’t think we know that for sure yet.
Insects are a sure bet though, unpalatable as that may be to so many (including myself. Blech). Don’t worry, you and I will both be dead before it’s an issue.
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I mean, it’s mostly about seasoning (and sometimes texture). Like the “As Salt Loves Meat” variant of King Lear. (Animal) meat without proper seasoning isn’t that tasty in the first place.
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Well… yeah. They’re conservatives. Their whole gig is about clinging to the old ways as the best ways and denying anyone the stuff they prefer, even when they don’t have to choose it themselves. They scream and rage about veggie burgers, despite the fact beef is still well stocked in their stores. Now this little piece of dipshittery.
Conservatives just live in fear all the time. Must be exhausting.
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When I was a kid I lived in a suburb of Lusaka in Zambia.
Ofttimes I would go outside in the morning to find an abundance of insect legs and wings strewn about on the veranda at the front of the house. I had numerous theories to explain this phenomenon but no actual evidence beyond the hundreds of discarded wings and legs.
Then one night I and my family arrived home late from a drive-in movie to find a small group of traditionally dressed black Africans on the veranda, catching flying insects by hand, deftly denuding them of wings and legs and stuffing them into sacks.
My Dad, gentleman that he was, put them at their ease and went into the house to reappear a moment later with a butterfly net. Much hilarity ensued among the natives as he demonstrated its use and relative efficiency. He insisted that they keep it as a gift.
The insects being hunted were familiar to me. I had recognised the discarded wings and legs, but I hadn’t known they were nocturnal or that they hung around in squadrons. They resembled crickets but weren’t nearly as wily or as spiky. They were about two inches in length and came in yellow, brown and green.
I have no idea what the tasted like but whenever I consider the possibility of an insect diet, it’s those insects that I think of.
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Translation: “we’re just one step shy of Newsmax becoming a video version of Weekly World News.”
The plain fact is, they need outrage to transfix in their audience, thus guaranteeing them ad revenue.
The business model also means they can’t get outraged over anything that leans left, so if Biden hasn’t stuttered today (or if Obama hasn’t worn a tan suit) then they gotta come up with something to fill air time. Probably they have staff working on this stuff all the time, and keep stories on ice until a slow news day.
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Move to Texas, you can have breakfast in bed:
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This must already be going on, judging by the number of companies marketing cricket dog food. This has to be better for the planet, and the dogs, than raising livestock or catching fish to feed pets. The future is already here, just waiting for people to catch up.
Ironically, Margaret Thatcher declared there is no such thing as society, just individuals making choices. Yet given an example of just that, they find it inconceivable (to use a word I keep saying).
About twenty years ago we took our kids to a natural history museum in Ottawa that was featuring a demonstration of insect recipes. Our kids, both less than 10 at the time, didn’t balk at trying cricket brownies, so of course we had to as well. I really couldn’t detect the cricket ingredient and happily finished my brownie. My wife got as far as the first crunchy bit and decided she was opposed to snacking between meals. I think the lesson is that if kids are introduced to different foods young enough, it’s just normal.
obligs:
But I won’t be dead of starvation. 
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The right wing tends to do that alot.
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in Oaxaca, papi and i will munch on chapulines and avocado on the beach with a bucket of Tecate. we like 'em spicy!
exactly! we call spiny lobster “bugs” down here and crawdads are “mudbugs”. have you ever seen shrimp in the ocean? mum and i have (think roaches and then have another shrimp cocktail! btw: Key West pinks are the best shrimp, bar none, imho)
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Conservatives are all 7-year-olds in suits.
“I’m scared of that. I don’t like this. Are there still monsters under my bed?”
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BoingBoing’s Disney Lib bubble has kept it in a timecapsule since about 2011.
Aren’t you aware the dem hegemony’s agenda has clearly been highlighted time and again by the right’s superior memeing to include an all bug diet and making us live in pods?
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It’s only fair. Conservatives started this when they forced Martin Luther to submit to that Diet of Worms.
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Well, actually they are eating bugs for a looooong time…
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BB’s posting a ton of stuff on bugs today. What gives?
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I can only enjoy lobster by not thinking about it too much. 
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