Insects find their way onto Italian plates despite resistance
Insects find their way onto Italian plates despite resistance
Pulverising crickets to make flour for food is seen by some as a threat to the Mediterranean diet.
Obligatory to each their own, etc. etc.
That being said I'm not sure who these insect burgers are for, or what problem they solve. If you acknowledge that diet is big part of climate change solutions, then why not go directly to plant-based burgers? It's not like crickets have anything in common with red meat in any way.
My cynical take is that it's just a way to "do the right thing" without agreeing with the vegans. Gotta eat dead animals.
I think that's a bad faith interpretation to imply that one eats animals exclusively because it being 'animals' is the point. Most people don't think about it, their priority is making their daily life as simple as possible. They just eat whatever tastes good and is easy to get. And the people pushing for eating insects are thinking about it; they just have different priorities; they're trying to make environmentally-sustainable food easier to get.
Insects are still a far better choice for protein. They don't take remotely the amount of land or water that soy crops do, and they can be grown in areas of the world that don't have as much freshwater. They can be fed off scraps and organic material that are waste to us. They also have a high return yield; they're not being lost to droughts/weather/pests at the rate crops (especially organic) are. I'd posit that an insect-inclusive diet is probably more environmentally-friendly than the modern vegan diet is.
Humans are evolved omnivores. It's both possible and noble to have an organic and herbivorous diet that meets your basic needs, but it's difficult, often inaccessible, expensive; and it takes up huge amounts of land to grow the kind of crops needed (especially if much of them are lost to pests). Soy demands a lot of water, and avocados have been priced out of reach of the impoverished Central Americans they used to cheaply feed. Whether plant or animal, we are only alive by consuming life. There is no diet without some harm to somebody somewhere. Most vegan diets are too expensive (or unavailable), and are part of the deforestation for soy plantations overseas.
Ultimately now that principles have become a part of how we consume (and not just necessity, availability, effort etc), any philosophy requires compromise. If one's primary concern is freshwater, the carbon cycle, deforestation for cropland, nutrition density, local food-chain, animal suffrage, animal consent, organic, local-grown, seasonal, etc... It's not possible to follow them all, and it's not reasonable to expect everybody choose a single specific one.
I have a preference towards attainable and environmentally-sustainable eating, which means that eating crickets (and mushrooms, yum) is less harmful ecologically than eating soy (deforestation, water), and far less harmful than cattle (magnitudes worse than any other livestock). I also avoid palm oil products (deforestation). I don't disagree with any vegetarians or vegans who chose other principles; it's excellent that humans are becoming increasingly mindful of what we choose to eat. We just have different priorities.
Insects are also cheaper than plants.
Plant-based food alternatives, at least in the U.S. are very expensive to the counterparts.
Poor people make up a majority of America. If we want change, we need feasible alternatives, not greenwashed ones that price out at the middle class. Impoverished people aren't capable of making the same extent of changes sheerly because their survival is more important than not using cow milk.
I'm totally with you, we need to make efforts at culturally appropriate changes and to make efforts towards diversifying all of them. More options is only a good thing and I'll never understand this idea that it has to be specifically one thing (usually some kind of plant based). If it can be made cheap enough, great, but don't we also want lab grown, insect based, and locally farmed meat and produce? Let's try and make strides towards making all of these as prevalent as factory farming, no?
"These products are garbage," he says. "We are not used to them, they are not part of the Mediterranean diet. And they could be a threat for people: we don't know what eating insects can do to our bodies.
As opposed to red meat, which we know causes health issues in large quantities...
People are afraid of change, I get it. The thought of eating bugs weirds me out too, but do it for a month or so and I'm sure it's fine.
Vegetables in large quantities also produce a wide variety of toxins, plants don't exactly want to be eaten. It seems odd to ignore moderation when it goes both ways.
It’s bonkers to me that people who eat “normal” meat are so opposed to eating insects. Without exception, it basically comes down to not wanting to try new things, which is often tied to conservatism and being scared of change in general.
It shouldn’t be surprising that the politicians fighting this are right wingers who are against this on a cultural level - aka being afraid of change.
Would you eat cat, dog, or horse meat?
The only reason you don't eat those meats is because you are not used to it. People ate horse meat in Europe regularly until WW2 and cats and dogs are eaten in other part of the world.
Cats and dogs are no more intelligent than cows but we have emotional attachment and historical use (herding and killing rats) for them so in the Western world we prefer to have them as pets.
It's simply disgusting, it's not political, it's gag inducing.
Like I said
Without exception, it basically comes down to not wanting to try new things
Nothing about it is inherently icky. You’re just not used to the idea and therefore don’t want to try it.
Also, you’ve most likely consumed insects before, because they are also used in food colouring.