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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31021 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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If you like lobster, you already eat "bugs".

Lobsters are crustaceans while "bugs" is usually used to refer to insects (Insecta) - not even allowing for the fact that true bugs (Hemiptera) make up an even smaller order. Crustaceans aren't even that close to insects phylogenetically, things like springtails are a lot closer to insects than them.

Otherwise yeah I agree completely.

Crustaceans aren't even that close to insects phylogenetically

Hyperpedantry time: Insecta is, technically, included in Crustacea, so that some crustaceans are closer relatives of insects that of other crustaceans, and so that cladistically insects are crustaceans in the same sense that birds are reptiles. (Springtails are indeed still closer to insects than to any non-hexapod crustacean, though.) This of course has no relevance whatsoever to any cultural or gastronomic considerations, but I figured someone might want to know.

Note : Noma (supposedly the world's best restaurant) has been surprising people with how delicious ants are for a good decade now. Credit where it is due, tribals in many parts of the world have known this for centuries. But, now people with 'sophisticated palates' can also approve.

I've eaten un-seasoned plain thai-water-beetles(big cockroaches) and they surprisingly taste more like pickle juice than anything.

Hey, if it is nutritious, doesn't trigger my disgust response, is delicious and cheap......then why not ?

I spent a good year creeped out the 'blood' leaking from raw (medium rare) steak. A few years later, I love it.

Bugs are repulsive because they are tiny, munching on bugs feels like you are living in most desperate famine time.

Genetically engineer bugs to be size of cattle and everyone would love bugsteak and bugburger, everyone would admire tough and manly bugboys driving bug herds across endless grassy plains ;-)

Bugs are repulsive because they are tiny, munching on bugs feels like you are living in most desperate famine time.

Actually, most bugs are gross because they've evolved anti-mammal predatory secretions. Crickets smell gross because its intentional. They want to be the meal of last resort of mammals. Its just like a weak version of the acacia trees' Giraffe defense mechanism.

Bugs cannot be engineered to be bigger than they currently are because their internal biology is designed for being small. They don't have lungs, or blood as we think of it, or complex nervous systems, or a hundred other things necessary for larger animals. In addition, part of what makes insects an 'efficient' food source is precisely their small size and short life cycle.

I don't see the bother even to try. When there are countless mammals and birds and fish around which are already delicious and great food, why choose to try and make perfect future food out of bugs? Why not start with something that is already great and just needs some tweaking?

Bugs cannot be engineered to be bigger than they currently are because their internal biology is designed for being small.

Oh ye of little faith...

It’s interesting because the main constraint on insect size is oxygen concentration. During the Carboniferous, when the oxygen concentration was nearly 35%, bugs were huge! https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/carboniferous-giant-insects/

High oxygen is useful but not sufficient -- arthropods have to molt their cuticle periodically, and when they have freshly molted they are short on mechanical support. You can get by with hydraulic pressure if you are very small or live in water, but if you weigh a ton and live on land you will be extremely vulnerable in many occasions. Also, there's the issue of competition with vertebrates, which are generally more efficient in large-sized niches. The giant arthropods of the Carboniferous owed their existence to the fact that large vertebrates were still few and sparse as much as high oxygen concentration.

We can fairly easily engineer high-oxygen environments..

🤔

Bugs look horrific under a microscope. Likely because their features are so different from mammals, and in less asthetically pleasing ways than most fish or birds. Scale that up to cow size and people would call for the abomimation to be excised.

in less asthetically pleasing ways than most fish

Maybe due to familiarity bias? People see fish rostrums every now and then, but those of insects only in documentaries and books, usually in relatively late childhood.

Flounder are nightmare fuel and we still eat them. Because they're delicious nightmare fuel.

I don't find flounder that tasty and it's nothing to do with their faces. The flipside is I know several people who seem incapable of eating any fish if served with the head still attached (and do not know the delicious truth of cheek/collar cuts in general).

On the flip side is I know lots of people who will happily eat fish eyeballs and exotic pig parts, but would not eat bugs.

people would call for the abomimation to be excised.

yes, excised on a grill ;-)

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