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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.
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.
I'm not necessarily accustomed to eating insects... but even the packaged/processed foods we have today are allowed to be a certain percentage of hair/bug/mouse-poop so that it doesn't become impossible to produce legal food :)
Disgust at eating bugs isn't political, but it's cultural. It's far from universal.
I grew up eating seafood but I still hate dealing with it if I have to remove shells and clean it. Telling people to suck it up and eat something they don't want to eat makes no sense to me.
Nobody is being forced to eat anything. The point is that people have an irrational revultion at the thought of eating insects.
Do you like lobster or shrimp? They're basically bugs.
I actually can't eat lobster either, the giant sea bugs creep me out. Shrimp I'll eat but not if I have to remove the shells and such. Obviously people are different and my disgust sensitivity might be higher than normal. I grew up in a household that ate a lot of seafood so it's not due to lack of trying.
I'm pretty sure everybody removes the shells from shrimp before eating. It's called a carapace, and roaches have them too.
Also, whether or not you specifically eat lobster or shrimp is only somewhat relevant. The point is that people in general eat those things. Lots of people. In fact, lobster is considered a delicacy.
These are essentially insects, and they've been a popular part of human cuisine for a very long time. It is hypocritical. Any difference between the two are entirely mental.
Having a preference is not hypocritical. What the fuck are you saying LOL
"hypocritical" may not be the best word for it but the point that there isn't much of a difference between some of the foods we already eat (shrimp, lobster, crayfish) and insects and that the primary block to eating insects is a mental one seems pretty inarguable. (it's honestly also likely people do eat insects and just don't know they are--they're everywhere, unintentionally, in the foods we eat.)
I like crab, bit I can't stand soft shell crab. It's a mouthfeel thing, and I expect a lot of insect food preparations are similar
No, insects are ground into a powder and essentially used like flour. You probably wouldn't even know you're eating it if someone didn't tell you. No mouth feel to speak of.
Yeah in some cases. In others they are served whole, like fried crickets, beetles, etc.
Yeah, some people eat them that way, but when people talk about some vague conspiracy to get people to eat insects, they're referring to the flour and being "forced" to eat things made with that instead of wheat flour.
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.
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?