EU approves insects for human consumption

**Rumata** · 04-13-2023, 10:54 PM

Originally Posted by StonyArabia

ROFL.

I see the ROFL-man is back. Couple with Incal to improve any thread then.

Originally Posted by Annihilus

You should start, maybe you become more enjoyable then

I missed that I'm here not for your enjoyment.

**InmostLight** · 04-13-2023, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by gixajo

Yeah, so this is actually all a cultural bias. Even so, bees are seen as "nice" insects but not the beetles that produce this secretion.

It is also true that literally "eating insects" is not the same as "eating products made with insects".

To me, more than the "multicultural" veneer that seems to bother most here, what worries me is what it might mean that our politicians are trying to open the Overton window on this issue.

In other words, the possibility that this means that they are preparing the population for a possible future food crisis that affects traditional meat products,and that they are trying to get us to see this type of food considered till now disgusting as an option.

The crisis would cause an exaggerated increase in meat prices, so as always, these products would preferably be aimed at the mass with lower incomes.

You're probably spot on. Why do they encourage insect consumption instead of legume consumption as an alternative to meat? Vegetarian societies, like those in India, have used legumes for millennia, with no health problems to come of it. Pressuring Westerners to eat insects is intentionally degrading.

There's nothing wrong with eating insects in concept, as many people do it just for funsies, but the taboo around insect consumption in the West-- combined with the push for it-- should be undeniable evidence that this is about dehumanizing and mocking us.

Maybe I'll just beef myself up on offal and high-fat dairy to last a little bit longer once the next manufactured shortage arrives. I'll eat squirrels and possums before I eat lab-grown meat or insects.

**Rumata** · 04-13-2023, 11:01 PM

Originally Posted by InmostLight

There's nothing wrong with eating insects in concept, as many people do it just for funsies, but the taboo around insect consumption in the West-- combined with the push for it-- should be undeniable evidence that this is about dehumanizing and mocking us.

Taboos are often results of wisdom acquired by thousands of years of experience.

**Annihilus** · 04-13-2023, 11:02 PM

Layla Eplett over at the Scientific American Guest Blog estimates that "an individual probably ingests about one to two pounds of flies, maggots and other bugs each year without even knowing it."

**InmostLight** · 04-13-2023, 11:04 PM

Originally Posted by Rumata

Taboos are often results of wisdom acquired by thousands of years of experience.

That's so true. I was talking to someone recently about how the list of edible animals in Abrahamic religions, if not truly divinely-given, was just good common sense acquired from millions of years of humans eating the wrong animals and getting food poisoning.