insects

World Food Faileo
08/14/2011 - 22:39

From a New Yorker article I was reading about eating bugs

At the conference, Dunkel talked about her frustration working in West Africa, where for decades European and American entomologists, through programs like U.S.A.I.D. and British Locust Control, have killed grasshoppers and locusts, which are complete proteins, in order to preserve the incomplete proteins in millet, wheat, barley, sorghum, and maize. Her field work in Mali focusses on the role of grasshoppers in the diets of children, who, for cultural reasons, do not eat chicken or eggs. Grasshoppers contain essential amino acids and serve as a crucial buffer against kwashiorkor, a protein deficiency that impedes physical and neurological development. In the village where Dunkel works, kwashiorkor is on the rise; in recent years, nearby fields have been planted with cotton, and pesticide use has intensified. Mothers now warn their children not to collect the grasshoppers, which they rightly fear may be contaminated.

Fail. If you rely on insects you can be perfectly healthy. Near the equator, insects are an important food source for foraging people. There are even several species that are very rich in important fats. I'd rather eat locusts than a grain like millet, which is responsible for goiter in many Africas. 

For more info on stupid food aid mistakes, I highly suggest The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by Wililam Easterly. 

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Consider the Invertebrate
07/27/2011 - 19:53

 I've mentioned before the fact that you can get all your necessary animal-based nutrients from invertebrates like oysters. Why do people with ethical qualms about eating cows and pigs becomes vegans and forgo foods like oysters? Animal rights propaganda is full of stories about how invertebrates feel pain and are enslaved to make honey etc. etc. etc. Like this fine example of wingnuttery:

But it really doesn't matter anyway, does it? Vegans typically don't judge species based on their intelligence. If it were ok to eat someone because he's dumb, a lot of humans would be in trouble. It must be because bees can't feel pain. But why wouldn't bees feel pain? They are animals with a large nervous system (Snodgrass, 254) capable of transmitting pain signals. And unlike in the case of plants, pain as we know it would be a useful evolutionary feature since bees are capable of moving to avoid it. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is all that matters. Pain must be unpleasant or else it wouldn't work. If common sense isn't good enough, we can always resort to scientific studies that indicate that bees feel pain.

The next section is titled "The Enslavement of Bees." 

Unfortunately for these folks, our entire crop-agricultural system is founded on growing food that invertebrates love as much as we do. Obviously letting them share in the bounty is infeasible, so we kill them with various pesticides. Take BT toxin, used in both organic and conventional agriculture:

When insects ingest toxin crystals, the alkaline pH of their digestive tract activates the toxin. Cry toxin gets inserted into the insect gut cell membrane, forming a pore. The pore results in cell lysis and eventual death of the insect.[9][10]

Cell lysis...sounds like fun! My choice of pesticide last year was one based on soy oil, which coats the insect so it suffocates and is arguably the proper use of this noxious oil. In the end, what is the point of arguing about whether or not a bee feels pain when our agricultural system kills millions of insects with identical cognitive capacity every year? I suppose you could argue about intent, but intent doesn't particularly matter to insects when they are suffocating to death. It underscores the fact that veganism is a nonsensical ideology where people would rather consume synthetic supplements made in a factory than eat an oyster or some bee larvae. 

 

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Free Food NYC
04/29/2010 - 15:36

Is the price of grass-fed meat getting you down? Why not try some delicious nutritious meat for free in NYC this Sunday? Try some samples of meats our ancestors would have loved and which are enjoyed by many hunter-gatherer cultures. The cuts will be kind of small, but it's hard to get large steaks from these animals. I am a little worried that the animal rights protesters will be there holding up signs like "Don't squash their lives away," but just ignore them.

Yes, I am talking about eating bugs. They are a 100% paleo and a 100% sustainable source of protein. I've eaten them from time to time. I can't say they are delicious, but why not? Bug Biters Brooklyn is serving them. Be there or be square.

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