That’s not what the article you linked says.
It says crickets are only slightly more efficient at converting chicken feed to human-edible protein than chickens are. Here, direct quote:
Those that ate a diet of processed food waste had feed and protein conversion rates no more efficient than that of chickens. Nearly all those fed straight food waste died before they could be harvested. And the most successful crickets were those that ate a grain-based diet similar to what most poultry eat. They had a 35% protein conversion rate, which is only slightly better than chickens.
The reference to “died before they could be harvested” suggests crickets raised on completely unprocessed food waste complete their life cycle in under two weeks (the program used a 2 week harvesting rule in order to reduce the number of variables between experiments).
Skimming the source paper, it seems to be saying that its results conflict with an earlier experiment, that claimed much higher waste to food conversion rates using crickets. That’s all. There’s nothing in here that says insects can’t be economically raised; in fact the conclusion of the paper says more research is necessary to determine the proper insects to use for specific waste streams not currently used as livestock feed, it doesn’t address replacing livestock with insects at all.
Insects are also relatively easier to grow, and care for than animals. On a commercial scale i’m sure there’s going to be different hurdles to consider if insects were to be grown for human consumption. But it does appear that they make more economic sense than traditional livestock, other than the ick factor.
There’s so few articles here about chickens…and I love this little guy so much…so here ya go
Where they shine is converting food waste back into usable food. They can reclaim rotten and spoiled foods back into usable protein.
There were some discussions on this site a few years back about this. When the article came out about large industrial soy having a higher impact than factory farmed meat. It isn’t so simple as meat or veg is better, it has a lot more to do with production methods than what is being produced.
Just to add one thing which is no point in any debate, currently: I think we would also need research on the methane and ammonia output of insect farming, ASAP. It’s very hard to get conclusive info on that. I tried for termites. It’s a mess. But it’s clear they do emit a substantial amount of methane. I haven’t yet put this into relation with bovine methane emissions, and I have the feeling insects are more efficient. However, -show me the data_ is needed for more species, and production methods.
Sidenote: what actually brought me here was the mention of Ciproflox-resistant Campylobacter. This is hardly something new, but FFS a hell of a warning signs that nobody listens when they are warned.
Money quote:
In Campylobacter spp. isolates from human cases, clinical resistance to common antimicrobials was frequently detected. Very high proportions of isolates (47.4% EU average) were resistant to the critically important antimicrobial ciprofloxacin with increasing trends observed in several Member States.
Out of wild curiosity, why were you trying to farm termites?
Superbug!
We can’t sweep your butt beneath the rug…
http://harryshearer.com/le-show-archive-search/?keyword=superbug
Also,
In many ways, this is a new trend that we’ve eaten this much meat. More often it was rare, even offal (organ meat) was treasured. Now, the idea of a meatless meal seems unusual here in the US. I hope eventually we’ll get out of it. I’ve been trying to do the same but I’m a terrible cook.
For me it was a logical progression, when i started to live on my own and was cooking for myself i always made sure to cook meat and veggies. As money became tighter i wanted to make my money go further and it was cheaper for me to focus on veggies which i already enjoyed cooking up in various ways. Eventually i got tired of buying meat and preparing it (trimming the fat off, portioning it before freezing, etc), and not buying it allowed me to save money on groceries.
My suggestion is don’t cut meat out just yet but find ways to make some sides you’ll enjoy, like baked zucchini, stir-fried veggies, cooked collared greens, potato salad with a basil oil dressing, etc. Eventually you’ll realize that the meat is actually pretty secondary and phasing it out is not that big of an effort and easy to avoid.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that i still eat meat when i’m out and about, but on a practical level i consider myself a vegetarian.
In order to reduce meat intake for health reasons, I found that instead of making it a main course, having dishes which were largely veggies with meat mixed in or secondary to them was a great alternative. It allows one to be very economical on ingredients. Stuffed peppers, mabo-tofu, miso soup with a little pork belly and leftover veggies, bitter melon and minced meat, and the like.
Frankly the only kind of purely vegetarian food I really enjoy as a main course is Indian cuisine. There is so much variety and flavor there. Its tough not to love.
Making food vegetarian is pretty easy i find. For example italian food you would consider as being pretty flavorful and there’s quite a large variety of authentic recipes that don’t have any meat. Various Asian dishes can also exclude meat, you just have to make sure you have enough starches and alternative proteins to fill you up (mushrooms, tofu and nuts on the protein front). And Hispanic foods can be a little bit trickier to do vegetarian but follows similar steps to the Asian one, just focus on starches like yuca root, potatoes, plantain, etc and grains like rice, beans and lentils.
Thanks, do you know of any decent cook books? Seriously, I barely know how to fry eggs or cook a burger. X_X
I have several cookbooks… that i’ve never touched despite looking really promising lol. However i have the perfect segway into your question, i recently tried Hello Fresh (one of those fresh meal box/subscriptions), their recipes are super easy to follow and don’t take a lot of prep or time to make. While the subscription is a little bit pricey i did figure out recently that their entire recipe catalogue is online for free and viewable to anyone. They have categories for vegetarian recipes, and the few that i tried were pretty good… you could likely look up a few recipes and give them a go.
I tried a baked mushroom ravioli one that was damn good. Recipes also seem easy to modify if you didn’t like certain ingredients or had slightly different things available when grocery shopping.
If you did want to try a single week of Hello Fresh i could give you my referral for a free week, but i’m not here to pimp out a referral link. More interested in empowering you to pick up some knowledge in cooking some recipes regardless if its through their service or not 
Edit: Also last thing to add seems like the majority of the recipes they use take about a half hour to make, i’ve found that it could take up to 45 mins depending on how much prep work you need to do but its nothing complicated, it’s mostly portioning out the ingredients than anything.
Depends on your heritage. If your ancestors spent a few thousand years up around the arctic circle, you might well be genetically optimized to eat nothing but meat for months at a time. My own ancestors could get meat (mammals, fish, birds) more easily than they could get green veg, most of the year, and empirically I find I require very little non-meat food.
Sustainable, but not scalable: meat for 17 million meals a day each in NYC and London would take a hell of a lot of small farms and local markets.
Just wanted to add eggplant Parmesan. Not only tasty, but it sort of seems as if there is meat in it even tho there isn’t any…
Exactly right. Likely the kind of numbers we saw before centeralized industrial single producer farms.
Based on what are you making this claim?
If I remember right, ‘Joy of Cooking’ is an excellent introduction to most aspects of cooking. Apparently you can find a lot on info here:
A slight variation of this is eggplant lasagna, which is pretty wonderful too and quite filling.
