Maybe this is cultural bias speaking but I am just So NOT eating that!
Gag, cough, spew, YUCK!

[www.youtube.com]

$8 for some bug tacos. That's some really savings!

You couldn't pay me $8 to try that. My goodness, can you imagine eating a dish containing several dozen creatures? OMG, no no no no no.

aghh. there are some things i would never ever do! eating a bug taco would be one such thing.

I'd eat the bugs before I ate the tortillas or the ice cream. I inadvertently eat bugs all the time. It's no biggie. I think that humans are too domesticated now. What will happen in the future is the bugs will be dried and turned into protein supplements to help people deal with not eating meat. They'll create formulas with different insects that provide different benefits, sort of like herbs. I'll take that over the horrors of factory farming any day.

The EU is getting involved:

[www.telegraph.co.uk]

Soylent green, SOYLENT GREEN!!!! AAAHHHHH!!!!

Honestly, it's got to be way more environmentally-friendly than murdering giant cows?? If "vegan" means doing no harm to sentient creatures, eating insects has got to be closer to vegan than eating cows... especially when you consider the slash-and-burn of forests for crops and cattle, to all the blood spilled for petrol involved in the transportation, etc.

If my blood tests came back lacking in any department, it probably would have been the crossroads at which I seriously considered supplementing with some insect protein. (David Wolfe sells "herbal ants," doesn't he? O.o)

But, seems I got everything I needed by just eating plants, anyway. I digress!

Once upon a time in utopia, it seems to me like our holy fruit (figs) would have been FULL of insects. I used to forage behind my old apartment for black raspberries. Every morning I would go out like little blue riding hood and forage, stuff my pockets, climb to the top of a shady hill and listen to the stream, enjoying the bounty.

One day, after many moons of doing this, I realized, ALL THE BERRIES WERE FULL OF TINY WORMS.

It's nicer when you don't notice you're eating bugs. But if you don't notice, you can't tell.

If push came to shove, I would totally embrace eating insects if it the alternative was malnutrition. I would eat insects WAY before I eat a box of Froot Loops (who decided to spell it like that, anyway?).

But the real question is: should you eat them raw? :O

I suppose intentions come into play: if you are just eating fruit and don't know they're in there, it's a bit different than growing (ugh) a big tank of worms and then frying them up.

I don't think I'd want to eat farmed insects. But I would forage for shiny beetles under a log (maybe, during the apocalypse, see "survival preparedness" thread ).

Kilo for kilo, there are more ants than humans on earth. I don't want to eat them. But I'd seriously rather starve than eat meat (bloody rabbit in a trap? no thanks), and in a "what if" scenario, a few grubs might be a last answer.

IDEALLY, though, I'll have my own amazing greenhouse full of fruit plants from across the world and the only bugs I'll have to deal with are the worms making compost for the garden. <3

Personally, I think it a crime against the Creator to eat insects; they are so integral to all biotic functions on this planet, it's obscene to think of them as just another thing we may devour because we can catch it.



Humans[sigh]

I wish mosquitoes saw us in the same way.

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Personally, I think it a crime against the Creator
> to eat insects; they are so integral to all biotic
> functions on this planet, it's obscene to think of
> them as just another thing we may devour because
> we can catch it.
>
>
>
> Humans

Not even going to watch it from the title of this thread and folks comments.

I'll squash a mosquito that's biting me but the idea of extinguishing several lives with each mouthful of a meal is a bit hard for me to stomach. So many beings... Does each live have less value because they are small? Imagine if there were a giant here on earth who thought the same of us and wiped out entire families without thought. Pretty sure I'd rather eat one fish or one chicken than 4 dozen bugs.

One thing that struck me while watching that video is that a lot of people are very poor right now and doing some odd stuff to get their food. Not everyone can go to Whole Foods and fill up two carts with over-priced, unripe produce and frozen organic entrees.

It's all about having compassion and trying to understand that people do things, not because they're bad, but instead because they're just doing the best they can in a time of difficulty. Being judgmental, especially toward the poor, will absolutely wreck your spiritual growth. I try to worry about what's on my own plate.

A gardener on TV mentioned people being afraid of insects and simliar creatures. He gets asked alot on how to create a beautiful garden- minus the bugs. His answer is that a healthy garden has lots and lots of insects.

In another source, an author mentioned that healthy soils actually move due to the motion of insects and other lifeforms. I haven't seen that yet actually. But somehow I believe it, and would love to see that one day, soil which can be observed to be subtly moving.

For those that care about animals no matter how small, thats great. It its out of fear or discust, well just keep in mind that much of the pesticides applied to food is for cosmetic reasons, people fearing an occational insect in produce or seeing scratches and scars on produce. Most people have an ideal fruit image in there mind, and will purchase whatever is closest to that, natural or not.

Money issues, I don't think thats really a good point. Some places on earth have very expensive resturants that serve expensive insect dishes. Motivation to save money isn't always the object. Some vegan foods are very expensive, like truffles, and some mushrooms. Some rare herbs can be very expensive. I have seen some really nice produce in the store which I have passed up because its a little out of my range. One has to be careful with associating particular foods with weath and that equaling something to be desired. I understand that in china animal product consumption has increased with increasing incomes. That with the perception that expensive items are better.

I've got no problem with the buggies, I think they're wonderful. Well, ok, not if they're biting me, those aren't my faves but generally speaking I have no problem with bugs. I just don't want 2 dozen of them in my taco.

Surely dried beans are cheaper and more readily available as a low-expense food than insects, even apart from the environmental degradation costs?

exactly...so many beautiful vegan foods are available, sometimes i don't even know what to choose! (and not expensive most of it, far less so than animal products).

to me it's not a decision like well bugs maybe less expensive or more available,or a source of protein...or whatever the said reasons are...i'm not looking for a protein/meat substitute, so many other nice plant foods to eat.

The mass-farming of plant food is every bit as horrible for the earth as anything else. If people can create a source of nutrients that replenishes itself and which only consumes a few feet of space in their homes, I have no complaints. A mealworm pursues food and then it dies, either naturally or at the hands of a predator. How is it's life in the home of a human being significantly different from its life in nature?

One of the great gaps in vegan morality, the great ignored conundrum, is the rape of Mother Earth at the hands of the system of mass-agriculture which feeds the vegan diet. There are also natural disasters and viruses that can wipe out food sources in a flash. It's important to be diverse in our food supply. There are also people who don't digest vegan diets very well. What should they do? Suffer and die?

I realize that this comment will lead to another deluge of PMs where I'm warned about getting banned and grilled about my dietary status, but I'm just trying to see the whole picture. I was pretty blown away when I learned how all of that "sustainable" and "natural" food that I eat is absolutely killing this world. Our real enemy is over-population and the irresponsible human breeder. I see nothing wrong with having 2 kids (one to replace you and one to replace a partner), but seriously, we can not feed the entire world much longer on either meat or produce or grains or whatever. People need to just slow down on the rutting a wee bit. Some argue that we have plenty of land to grow food. Okay but when do we stop? When do we start to resuscitate Mother Earth instead of continuing to take more and more and more under the belief that she has more and more and more.

I guess I'm weird because I see everything being made of the same stuff. It's hard for me to distinguish one life form from another. Like how is it more okay to eat one life form simply because it doesn't have eyes? I don't get that. We eat it and @#$%& it out and it goes back into the cycle. There's not a life-form on the planet that doesn't rely on other life forms for food.

HeavenHands, I completely agree about irresponsible agriculture. People complain about expensive organics being flown in from XYZ, but is local conventional any better when it means the destruction of my local biosphere?

Organic PERMACULTURE is where we all need to be headed. But rooftop gardens are a lot more practical and lower-impact than, say, rooftop cattle ranches.

I have never needed to eat bugs, therefore I do not. I'm doing fine on plants galore, and I have no DESIRE to eat bugs. But all I was saying, IF in some WEIRD, apocalyptic, survival-oriented catastrophe (or maybe incarceration? yikes!), I could never eat meat, but I would eat bugs. After I ate all the grass.