Outside of East and South Asia, I've never heard of cuisines purposely prepared using insects

Why would you need to kill them?

1.) find a tree ant nest
2.) squish it

>how would you collect and kill the ants without pesticide?
ant farms and vacuums

why would you even jump to pesticides?

I've had I think it was called escamoles in Mexico. They were ant larvae. And that shit was delicious.
On a side note raw/living grasshoppers taste like brown button mushrooms

+cultivating insects is enormously more resource efficient than cultivating cattle, could have huge positive effects on the environment if adopted widely
+insects consist of much more protein per gram than meat
+insects have the potential to be a delicious alternative to meat if we gave them the chance

-they're icky

Sorry OP no insect based cuisine in the forseeable centuries ://///

Its objectively wrong to eat sentient beings.

>ant farms
That would only lead to genetically modified mutant ants and that would lead to the destruction of the human race.

>That would only lead to genetically modified mutant ants and that would lead to the destruction of the human race.
sounds good 2bh

also, like you said, genetic modification. just imagine big juicy GM ants that pop in your mouth with every bite

sounds tasty 2beehoney

I've heard of moth larvae eating in Italy and there's also casu marzu. They eat chapulines which are fried grasshoppers in Mexico. And of course silkworm pupae and other things in Asia.
My guess why it isn't more common is they tend to be harder to gather in large quantities traditionally when you could just slaughter a pig. Asians domesticated the silkmoth that produced silk and they had all the leftover pupae.

...

> carry disease
Insects are no more disease-carrying than farm animals or other humans.

umm lure the ants to a food source that traps them inside...duhh

They'd be easier to handle, I guess. Plus if they're transported overseas and any escape they could infest and destroy local species.

I'm sure you meant to respond to

>drop a chip
>wait 20 minutes
>acquire ants

This is how ant farmers recommend you get ants anyways.

I currently have an ant problem in my kitchen so if any of you bottom-feeders wants to help out come and lick the cupboards

Insects crawl through filth, and unless you're gonna filet a fucking insect, you're eating them whole, which means you're eating whatever filth they ate in their digestive system. Even with shrimp you pull their intestines out first.

That's why we need genetically modified mutant ants.
Then we can give them artificial intelligence and train them to work on farms and cultivate our crops for us. What could go wrong?

>+insects have the potential to be a delicious alternative to meat if we gave them the chance

Nah, they lack the right stuff that makes stuff taste good

...

There's a lot of evidence that shows insects were an important part of human diet before they developed sophisticated hunting tools

Basically cavemen ate insects but beyond that it's been unnecessary

Mexico has the highest number of edible insects in the world, user. Some of it looks pretty dang tasty too. I've always wanted to try escamoles.

...

We've got witchetty grub lollies in Australia.

Catch up, rest of the world!

Delicious Animal Byproducts

Insect flour used in baked goods is p tasty

unreliable famine food. you can't farm them without high health hazards. Not taste that isn't found better in easier to get ingredients.

eat a rat while you're at it OP
let us know how that goes

>+cultivating insects is enormously more resource efficient than cultivating cattle, could have huge positive effects on the environment if adopted widely
it's wrong, the infrastructure requires tons of tech to work (heat and humidity has to be kept stable), and is hard to keep clean(insects shits a lot and react badly with promiscuity) or safe from external contamination.

>is p tasty
Jesus christ, you can't even talk like an adult.

I think you guys are making a mistake in assuming that these bugs have to be caught in the wild or grown on large properties.

They're bugs. Raising them in the 21st century is relatively easy and they take little space.

Likewise with the rat issue, if these were carefully raised, there would be no issue with eating them outside of taste. The aversion to these sources of food comes from traditional views towards them, but they could easily be raised without the causes for those issues in the 21st century.

It's the same as any other animal, so long as we're not including stupid shit like poisonous insects etc.

He's not talking. He's discussing insect protein on a message board that regularly had threads dedicated to two fat men who can't cook and a nervous wreck of a woman whose red sauce is 90% oil.

I have a feeling you're mad at something else and are letting it leak here. That's pretty unbecoming.

>Raising them in the 21st century is relatively easy and they take little space.

Yes. But that's talking about "right now". We certainly could develop easy ways to farm them for home consumption. In fact, some products like that already exist. Pic related, for example.

But that's not really relevant to what OP asked about, which was "human history thus far". We have only recently developed the technology to solve this problem.

For most of human history bugs were either impractical to farm, or not worth the effort of gathering in the wild (too much work for too little reward). Historically, they were only eaten if they happened to occur in excess (locust swarm, for example), or in times of utter desperation. It takes time for a food to be established and common. We just now developed practical insect farming tech; I'm sure in a hundred years they will be very commonly eaten. But that's a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what OP was asking.

I have 4 pet rats at the moment and have raised more than i can remember. I'm not against eating rats though, as long as i make the difference between social rats and eating rats.
I have eaten many rats that I have kept for that one purpose. Of course I have never allowed the pedigree rats to fraternize with the eating rats, partly because I don't want the genes to mix and partly because it sorta feels wrong.

Anyway, I used to keep about 9-10 fully grown eating rats at any given time. I fed them fatty foods to keep their weight up. I made sure not to let them live past 7-8 months as older rats are prone to develop cancer, and I'm not willingly eating a cancer ridden rat. At 7-8 months they are fully grown though, and if I start early with fatty foods they will get real juicy by that time.

I have several ways that I prepare rats but my absolute favorite is simply removing the intestines, tail and head, skinning them and marinate them with chili, cilantro, garlic, salt, black pepper, and a few pinches of dark muscovado sugar. Then I simply put them on the barbeque on indirect heat until they are tender and almost falling apart.
I then either eat them as is or remove the meat and use it in tacos or as a pulled pork substitute on hamburger bread with some bbq sauce, coleslaw and cheese.

I don't eat much rat these days since my economy is bretty decent and I just can't be bothered to breed that many rats for the simple purpose of eating them. But for anyone who's strapped for cash and can get past the fact that they’re eating a rat, I strongly recommend this as it's cheap, fun, and pretty fucking tasty if prepared correctly.

good goy
eat rats and bugs while I go spice my pork shoulder

>+insects consist of much more protein per gram than meat

That's not true though.

Sentience was a mistake.

I'm not adverse to the idea especially if someone could the texture more appealing without frying. In scouts we frequently fried grasshoppers and with some "cajun" seasoning on top and you've got a tip top fireside snack. However the mental image from Snowpiercer with the cockroaches still grosses me out.

...

Insect eating is big in countrys that are on the equator typical of living with abounce

Because we associate them with disease and filth.

I always thought that bugs might just taste like crustaceans such as crabs, prawns and lobster since they are all invertebrates with legs. Kinda like how red meat all tastes similar and how frog tastes like chicken.

I'd be open to try insects, heard they gave mad gains too.

Wow, if you compare the finished insect product to entire animals including everything we throw away after slaughter, the protein bar comes out ahead in terms of edible content? Amazing.

>+insects consist of much more protein per gram than meat
>more protein
>than meat

Still wrong.

If the price was right. Otherwise it isn't viable outside of a novelty.

Just gotta supplement some dietary fat, otherwise you'll get rabbit starvation.

Ofc m8, love pork, dairy, chicken and eggs mmmmmmmm.

Btw can anyone describe what insects taste like? I think it's more the look of insects that puts people off. I always thought of shrimp as cockroaches of the ocean but sea creatures are A E S T H E T I C so we always have no qualms about eating them

If insects are so cheap and readily available source of protein, why aren't farm feed mixed with insect protein instead of expensive soy or other proteins?

I wouldn't mind eating a delicious pork chop raised on insect feed.

But the truth is that insects simply aren't as cheap, or readily available to harvest as we assume.

Insects vary, many tend to taste a fair bit for their diet though.

Crickets are a place between... dry chicken and nuts.

>insect protein instead of expensive soy or other proteins?

Subsidies, noone pays it to bug production, but soy gets so much support they make more money if they sell at a loss since that's deductible...

>not worth the effort of gathering in the wild

But that's inherently untrue. Aztecs were eating insects as a form of protein for centuries. They have only recently started to gain popularity again in Mexico.

In addition, if you wanted to buy grasshoppers to eat right now they would cost around $6.25 an ounce. At 3.5 ounces for a serving of around 20 grams of protein (18$ total) that's way more expensive than a serving of beef. Chicatanas go for around $225 dollars a pound. Most of these insects are still caught wild as opposed to farmed. They are still plentiful but the demand is much higher simply because there are more people and less bugs then there was hundreds of years ago.

>Aztecs were eating insects as a form of protein for centuries

Yes, user. There are exceptions. In parts of africa termites are eaten. Bugs in general are popular in southeast Asia. Grubs are traditional in Australia. But a handful of exceptions doesn't invalidate a general trend.

>doesn't invalidate a trend perpetuated by imitation of Eurocentric standards.

Right, so it really only makes sense around equatorial regions where insects are plentiful. Which is kind of how food consumption works, you eat what's available.

>not worth the effort of gathering in the wild

But they are, where they are plentiful. That was my point.

>But they are, where they are plentiful. That was my point.

Of course. But that's in a minority of the world's cuisines, which was my point. Would it have triggered you less if I had stated "generally speaking, they aren't worth the effort to gather"? That seemed redundant, because everything we say is a generalization one way or another.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize 80% of the world's nations and 2 billion people was considered a minority of world cuisine

>so long as we're not including stupid shit like poisonous insects etc.
venomous centipedes and scorpions are prepared in SEAsia

perception changes everything

>Why has insect consumption been so rare in human history thus far?
>rare

It really, really isn't. Unless by human history you're discounting everything east of the Balkans.

But generally, people eat insects when they don't have other more ready sources of protein available, like Game or Husbanded animals.

I farm crickets and mealworms, and I can tell you that number is 100% edible. I even eat them alive, not kidding.

They're unappetizing and a good way to get parasites and diseases.

You can also get scorpions deep fried at the Arizona State Fair.

Advanced societies did not develop while primarily eating insects because until recent times you could not farm insects en masse. Only hunter-gatherer and extremely poor societies resorted to eating insects.

Squirrel is better.

Don't the offal/inedible parts of livestock usually get used for compost or dog food or some kind of rendering? The energy isn't being completely wasted, so you can't really make a direct comparison like that right?

Well he's addressing a child so...

If you have to process the offal you're wasting energy. Besides, eating insects is more energy efficient because less energy is required to raise them.

Don't insects have diseases that cant be killed by cooking them? Let alone eating them raw.

[citation needed]

Eating regular meat does that to you. It's why farms have health standards and why you cook meat.
"Unappetizing" is an opinion.

Just grind it into goo, deep-fry it and add some MSG.

Mammals, fish, and birds are good, insects and reptiles are evil

You don't want to put evil inside of your body, this is why insects and reptiles are rarely eaten and generally by evil people

That actually sums up the attitudes in this thread pretty well.