Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have a question for vegetarians while we are talking about meat substitutes...

Are you also opposed to eating insects? (other from EW BUG)

(fried grasshoppers are chicken nuggets on crack btw)

I don't know about insects, but I have had some vegetarians say they can eat fish because ''fish aren't meat''.

 Soladrin wrote:
I have a question for vegetarians while we are talking about meat substitutes...

Are you also opposed to eating insects? (other from EW BUG)

(fried grasshoppers are chicken nuggets on crack btw)

Personally, no, I wouldn't eat insects. At least not in a form that was recognizable as insects. If they were ground up and unrecognizable, maybe. I believe they make ground meals out of some insects, and that could be a good way to introduce protein to foods. I know that certain food dyes are derived from ground up insects, so I've probablly already partaken of such bugs unknowingly.

I am most interested in the idea of meat grown in a lab. I know that is being worked on and I think it would be a game changer for a lot of vegetarians who refrain from eating meat for ethical reasons.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't know about insects, but I have had some vegetarians say they can eat fish because ''fish aren't meat''.

In high school I dated a girl who was vegetarian and proclaimed that fish wasn't meat. I thought that was stupid argument then just as I think it is a stupid argument now.

A year or so into our relationship she started working at a seafood restaurant and guess what? Her theory on meatless fish changed after seeing how the food was prepared. Ah... what a dummy.

Most shiney sweets/candy have insect in them - they often contain shellac which although actually an excretion gets removed from the tree bugs and all before processing.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
I have a question for vegetarians while we are talking about meat substitutes...

Are you also opposed to eating insects? (other from EW BUG)

(fried grasshoppers are chicken nuggets on crack btw)

Personally, no, I wouldn't eat insects. At least not in a form that was recognizable as insects. If they were ground up and unrecognizable, maybe. I believe they make ground meals out of some insects, and that could be a good way to introduce protein to foods. I know that certain food dyes are derived from ground up insects, so I've probablly already partaken of such bugs unknowingly.

I am most interested in the idea of meat grown in a lab. I know that is being worked on and I think it would be a game changer for a lot of vegetarians who refrain from eating meat for ethical reasons.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't know about insects, but I have had some vegetarians say they can eat fish because ''fish aren't meat''.

In high school I dated a girl who was vegetarian and proclaimed that fish wasn't meat. I thought that was stupid argument then just as I think it is a stupid argument now.

A year or so into our relationship she started working at a seafood restaurant and guess what? Her theory on meatless fish changed after seeing how the food was prepared. Ah... what a dummy.

As said in the first post, not from an EW BUGS standpoint, but for the ethical veg's. Do you think eating insects is also unethical?

Also, we should totally switch fast food products to insects, they taste the same (or better when deep fried) are often healthier and are the single most efficient form of food production.

The only creepy-crawly thing I don't think I could bring myself to try is spider, unless it was served in a form that in no way resembled a spider or any part of a spider whatsoever. I like to think I'd be open to trying most other things, though, assuming they're dead and preferably cooked.

 Soladrin wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
I have a question for vegetarians while we are talking about meat substitutes...

Are you also opposed to eating insects? (other from EW BUG)

(fried grasshoppers are chicken nuggets on crack btw)

Personally, no, I wouldn't eat insects. At least not in a form that was recognizable as insects. If they were ground up and unrecognizable, maybe. I believe they make ground meals out of some insects, and that could be a good way to introduce protein to foods. I know that certain food dyes are derived from ground up insects, so I've probablly already partaken of such bugs unknowingly.

I am most interested in the idea of meat grown in a lab. I know that is being worked on and I think it would be a game changer for a lot of vegetarians who refrain from eating meat for ethical reasons.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't know about insects, but I have had some vegetarians say they can eat fish because ''fish aren't meat''.

In high school I dated a girl who was vegetarian and proclaimed that fish wasn't meat. I thought that was stupid argument then just as I think it is a stupid argument now.

A year or so into our relationship she started working at a seafood restaurant and guess what? Her theory on meatless fish changed after seeing how the food was prepared. Ah... what a dummy.

As said in the first post, not from an EW BUGS standpoint, but for the ethical veg's. Do you think eating insects is also unethical?

Also, we should totally switch fast food products to insects, they taste the same (or better when deep fried) are often healthier and are the single most efficient form of food production.

To be honest I don't know enough about insects to make that call. It isn't something I've thought much about (because, Ew! Bugs!) and I am not well versed in how insects behave to determine if eating them is ethical or not.

I wouldn't have problems with lab grown meats, though. If we can grow muscle tissue in vat-sized petri dishes sans consciousness then that would really be the ideal, right?

 Soladrin wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
I have a question for vegetarians while we are talking about meat substitutes...

Are you also opposed to eating insects? (other from EW BUG)

(fried grasshoppers are chicken nuggets on crack btw)

Personally, no, I wouldn't eat insects. At least not in a form that was recognizable as insects. If they were ground up and unrecognizable, maybe. I believe they make ground meals out of some insects, and that could be a good way to introduce protein to foods. I know that certain food dyes are derived from ground up insects, so I've probablly already partaken of such bugs unknowingly.

I am most interested in the idea of meat grown in a lab. I know that is being worked on and I think it would be a game changer for a lot of vegetarians who refrain from eating meat for ethical reasons.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't know about insects, but I have had some vegetarians say they can eat fish because ''fish aren't meat''.

In high school I dated a girl who was vegetarian and proclaimed that fish wasn't meat. I thought that was stupid argument then just as I think it is a stupid argument now.

A year or so into our relationship she started working at a seafood restaurant and guess what? Her theory on meatless fish changed after seeing how the food was prepared. Ah... what a dummy.

As said in the first post, not from an EW BUGS standpoint, but for the ethical veg's. Do you think eating insects is also unethical?

Also, we should totally switch fast food products to insects, they taste the same (or better when deep fried) are often healthier and are the single most efficient form of food production.

Did you just work the words "Deep Fried" and "Healthier" into the same sentence with a straight face?

As for eating the insects, I have found that the biggest problem is that chitin is worse than popcorn kernels for getting stuck between my teeth.

Nothing is healthier than a fried Johnny Depp.

 Ahtman wrote:
Nothing is healthier than a fried Johnny Depp.

You saw nothing.

Plenty of people around the world do eat insects.

I don't see a huge difference between eating an insect and an oyster or a prawn. But plenty of people don't like oysters or prawns, of course

Fact is, there are all kinds of foodstuffs that are accepted in some countries and seen as weird and horrible in others, simply due to cultural history. The Swedes love rotted herring. Most Europeans love rotted milk in the form of yoghurt and cheese. Japanese are fairly ambivalent about cheese, especially the strong types like Stilton, but they love natto, which is rotted stinky soya beans.

 Soladrin wrote:
Are you also opposed to eating insects? (other from EW BUG)

Yeah. Especially so since unlike other meat, it's very, very easy to do so in everyday life .

Snails have a fantastic ability to convert vegetation into biomass due to their slow metabolisms. Some varieties can supply a lot of protein, and snails are easy as hell to farm.

The ancient Romans and modern French are way ahead of you there!

Perhaps the ultimate ecofriendly farming system would be a snail farm where the snails are fed mushrooms grown on insect droppings from an insect farm.

 stanman wrote:
If you want to have meatless meat you can always try this

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/japanese-scientists-creates-meat-out-of-feces/


Recycled food, it's good for you!

Articles like that always get on my tits. They writer spends most of the time talking about "poop meat" and how icky it is, then includes a throwaway remark about how the technology being viable depends on surmounting "psychological barriers" to eating meat synthesised from protein found in sewage mud. Here's an idea; don't frame your article in ways that encourage that "eww, icky!" response? That might help. I mean christ, they make it sound like you're literally going to be eating gak, but the end-result of this process would be further away from fecal matter than the vegetables on the plate next to it, which need to be literally bathed in gak to grow.

Well, obviously they don't, but that's the tone the article takes towards this lab-grown artificial meat, which hopefully illustrates why I find it ridiculous and frustrating. So much technology doesn't get the development it deserves because shoddy journalists can't seem to frame stories about them in any ways other than "check out this new thing, ewww!" or "OMG will this lead to the rise of the killerdeathrobots?!?!"

I don't know what you're going on about. It's not the writer's job to sell this technology to readers or make sure it receives proper funding. The writer is simply reporting, and the fact that it really *IS* about turning sewage into edible food is what most people would find interesting about the story.

 gorgon wrote:
I don't know what you're going on about. It's not the writer's job to sell this technology to readers or make sure it receives proper funding. The writer is simply reporting, and the fact that it really *IS* about turning sewage into edible food is what most people would find interesting about the story.

I don't this specific case is really egregious in doing what Yodhrin was talking about, but reporters do have a tendency to exaggerate or outright make stuff up about what they are writing about.

I and my parents have done multiple interviews with local foodie magazines and publications about our heritage turkeys and the 4-h project and its outstanding how much gets lost in translation or outright ignored.