It has long been suggested that we should start eating insects to help the environment, but for many of us it is not a palatable thought. One Israeli firm is hoping to win over the squeamish by adding different flavourings.
Dror Tamir opens a packet of brown, jellied sweets. “Try one,” says the boss of food tech firm Hargol.
The little gummies are packed with protein, but not from soy or gelatine. They are instead made from an edible, jumping insect – locusts, which are a type of grasshopper.
“Grasshoppers taste like pecans, mushrooms, coffee and chocolate,” adds Mr Tamir. “But with our range of food we can add in different flavours… the gummies come in orange and strawberry flavour.”
Take the sex and travel option. I am not eating bugs. This is not negotiable.
Back in Israel, Mr Tamir admits that “the yuck factor” is one of his industry’s most important challenges. “But I am convinced it will soon be widely accepted, just like eating raw fish in sushi was embraced.”
Not by me, it isn’t.
The idiots think that they are going to save the planet by replacing the meat industry with the bug industry. Even in the unlikely event that they succeeded, we would then have to have bugs produced on a massive industrial scale which would totally defeat the object.
Also no, I’m not going to eat bugs either.
Surprised to see an Israeli company behind this as bugs are forbidden to Jews and considered not Kosher. Can’t see him getting many takers in the home market myself just as the ‘Kingdom of Pork’ shop in Tel Aviv only caters for a select few who eat the stuff there. The only insects that are considered as Kosher are certain varieties of Locust and then I believe only on the grounds that if you’ve got a plague of Locusts then you don’t have much else to eat as the Locusts have eaten it all.
There is a reason for the ‘yuk’ factor with regards eating insects and that is because they are associated often correctly with dirt and disease.
There is a
“I am not eating bugs.”
Maybe you already have.
“The cochineal … is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived.”
…
“The insect produces carminic acid that deters predation by other insects. Carminic acid, typically 17-24% of dried insects’ weight, can be extracted from the body and eggs, then mixed with aluminium or calcium salts to make carmine dye, also known as cochineal. Today, carmine is primarily used as a colorant in food and in lipstick (E120 or Natural Red 4).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal
Bon appetit
Well yes I suppose. Being a cyclist I must have swallowed a fair few over the years. I’m not going to eat them on purpose though.
Proper sushi is amazing, I love it! But forget those little sad boxes you get in Boots sandwich counter, they aren’t real sushi, it’s mostly smoked salmon.
Go to a Waitrose or M&S big enough to have a proper sushi counter. It’ll change your mind.
Grass … you can either allow cows etc. to eat it and convert it into protein and produce all those nasty greenhouse gases, which of course, will cause the planet to turn into a fiery uninhabitable ball of something or another (been happening, according to the scientists since the 1960’s or thereabouts) and then allow people to eat the cows.
Or:
Kill all the cows and allow the grass to be eaten by insects and/or bacteria which will break down the grass and produce the same amount of methane and carbon dioxide as the cows eating the stuff but this somehow will NOT cause the planet to turn into a fiery uninhabitable ball of something or another.
Nature abhors a vacuum and if the cows don’t digest the grass, then something will.
They don’t love the planet. They hate humanity.
That view, especially the last line, sums up my view of those involved in Green politics. What they hate is not what damages the planet instead they hate humanity. I’m coming around increasingly to the view that when you scratch a Green you find below the surface a misanthropic Malthusian of the worst sort.