As the population grows, so, too, will its hunger for meat. By 2050, meat production will need to surge by 50% to quell demand. The only problem is, producing so much (red) meat is already an environmental nightmare. And we simply might not have the resources to scale.
Meanwhile, Katharina Unger is planning to invite her friends over to an insect barbecue. (Really.) The University of Applied Arts Vienna grad has built a pretty impressive domestic insect-breeding concept called Farm 432. Over the course of 432 hours, with just a few food scraps, she can coax 1 gram of black soldier fly eggs into 2.4 kilograms of larvae protein. And if you listen to Unger long enough, her arguments are pretty convincing as to why we should all be growing fly larvae at home. […]
“Black soldier flies themselves do not eat, they just drink. And they do not transmit any disease to humans,” Unger explains. “Unlike normal house flies they usually do not sit on food and they do not sting or bite, either. They also fly very slowly, so in case one should escape it is easy to catch them.” […]
The larvae have a nutty, almost meaty flavor, Unger says, and her favorite dish is a tomato larvae risotto. But as tasty as it may be, and as well as Farm 432 may work, Unger admits that the design challenge is only part of making such an idea a success.
“With my design I am proposing a new lifestyle,” she says. “It’s about a potential new Western culture of insect eating and breeding. It’s about making people aware that there is a great variety of food on our planet that we rarely consider.”
I find the consistent use of the word “larvae” . . . disingenuous. Most of us call fly larvae “maggots”.
“Waiter, I’ll have the tomato maggot risotto” ~No One Ever
Appetizers for her main course.
Not sure how any of this could be considered vegan except in the sense of overwhelming preoccupation with food which is the definition of the sin of gluttony.
The neighbors’ fat little grandkids would be preferable.
“. . . lifestyle . . . culture . . . insects . . . . breeding . . . ”
What is it about these things that seems so perfectly fit, one to another? Eat hearty, serfs.
Casu marzu, molto bene, si?
The population growth is already slowing down anyway. It will invert and start to decrease soon enough. With increasing education and better health care (well, that could be going away as well) people are having fewer children.
How nice of them to take up eating little bugs, leaving more meat for the rest of us. More bacon, please!
That high-tech bug-harvesting thingamajiggy (solar powered?) might make her feel all cutting edge ‘n stuff, but how is this all that different from the cuisine of 3rd world countries that would dream of our 1st world food selection?
Oh, and it goes without saying that eating something called “Black Soldier flies” is raaaaacist.
But I said it anyway.
Better’n soylent green. Perhaps with dash of cochineal to daunt the black just a bit?
Trout bait tacos, yum.
I can see it now, the next toy fad will be a cross between an Easy Bake Oven, a “No Pest Strip” and an Ant Farm.
“Easy Pest Farm” sounds like a winner to me.
I see a Christmas toy sensation, Blake. Get thee to the patent office!
Is this anything?
http://twitchy.com/2013/08/03/its-official-nancy-mace-to-challenge-lindsey-graham-for-senate-seat/
We had barbecue takeout. Someone brought over these loaded down styrofoam meal-boxes and I ate like a young man eats. Now I am groaning and passing gas like three old men. In case I don’t make it, it’s been fun.
some lite reading for a sat nite
Misopaedia and the Insolence of Gay Monarchy
“Is this anything?”
yea madam lindsey has at least 2 opponents in the sc primary. if he doesn’t get 50% of the vote , there’s a runoff.
“Misopaedia and the Insolence of Gay Monarchy”
talks about kafka and waking up insect so on topic
As grossed out as I am about the thought of eating larvae, my revulsion is purely a matter of custom. Asians don’t consume curled milk much, either.
Give the woman credit for engaging in genuine innovation. The only problem would be if it became mandatory or if the alternatives were “nudged” out of existence.
Some African tribes eat larvae: maybe they can use this.
“curdled”
or curled, either
At least she doesn’t say they taste like chicken.
If it were processed (like most of our foodstuffs) and we weren’t reminded of what it is while it’s…well, no. I’d still gag. Gagamaggot.
Lady Gagamaggot.
Fabulous. Only palaeomerus could create a hazmat environment during his death throes.
oh my the “chiggers” in seattle are on a commie word path
Seattle mulls ban on ‘brown bag,’ other objectionable terms
chigger a play on this
Facebook Follies: Blocked for Saying “Chigger”
*igger ™ communist/islam owned and occupied. so shut up already.
Your ‘citizenship’ is hereby revoked. As a ‘resident’, you’ll only have certain rights as we deem appropriate. And don’t even think of using that loaded term ‘inalienable’ again…
the effin’ proggiggers
…and
if he be profiling chiggers the nyt won’t like him
serr8d,
BINGO!
The Ant Farm people should sue.
Wait, so you feed food to flies, who process it at whatever rate of efficiency considerably less than 100% into maggots, which you’re supposed to eat. Instead of the food, which is not only nicer, but there was more of it.
It’s not April. I checked.
“Wait, so you feed food to flies, who process it at whatever rate of efficiency considerably less than 100% into maggots, which you’re supposed to eat. Instead of the food, which is not only nicer, but there was more of it. It’s not April. I checked. -”
Well the flies don’t eat, they breed and drink water and die. They lay eggs that hatch into maggots which you feed scraps (stuff you’d throw out) and get fat and then you eat them, leaving a few to develop into flies so they can lay more eggs on your trash.
That’s the idea. How efficient it really is I have no idea.
“Grubs again. grumble grumble”
Heh. Another Firesign Theatre fan.
Aren’t grubs technically meat? This is pseudo-vegetarianism or “fashion”, I call it.
I think the idea is that if your only available choice for meat is bugs then vegetarianism starts to looks like the better option.
I see the flaw – the only available meat choice is *not* bugs.
I’m sure at some terrible dark point in the future where energy starvation traps mankind on a few flickering worlds, desperate to survive and crushed under the heel of some enervating superstate this will happen – but not soon.
Because it’s pretty darned gross.
I haven’t evolved this far just to go back to eating third world cousine.
“Cousine” means your female cousin, Mueller. ; )
steve mcqueen ate bugs in solitary confinement in the movie papillon
By 2050, meat production will need to surge by 50% to quell demand. The only problem is, producing so much (red) meat is already an environmental nightmare. And we simply might not have the resources to scale.
maybe we do
link
Soldier fly larvae are good food for chickens. So I say: raise ’em and feed ’em to your chickens. I’ll probably do that, once I move out to the country.
The way this works is: the maggots have to burrow into the ground to metamorphose, so you build them a little escape ramp that they’ll seek once they’re mature enough to have that urge to change. And they just slide into this waiting container, which you use to collect them once or twice a day, and then bring them to your waiting chickens.
The cool thing about them is they don’t eat meat, so you don’t have to hang your hunting carcasses out to stink and get full of blowfly larvae, which drop into the reach of waiting chickens. It’s much more tidy, and much less smelly, doing it with soldier fly larvae.
I can’t believe, on a three day old thread, that the only person who even came close to going there is leigh in the third comment.
What’s the matter with you people?
What’s the matter with you people?
Among 0ther things only consider that we’ve already tasted the neighbor’s fat grandchildren and found the flavor more disgusting than the thought of eating vermi.