A Bug's Guide to Save the World: Eat me!

"You? Saving the world? Nah..."

So, the other day I saw this TED talk, it was about eating insects and how it (sort of) tackles the global issues that we are facing today. I thought it should be an interesting topic to write on (hence this post). However, at some point over the course of this post, I may strike you as a hypocrite for advocating something I do not have the slightest intention of practicing (yet. YET!). That (me being a hypocrite) should not be of your concern, what is though, is that you should read with an open mind and decide for yourself. :)



Alrighty dookie. Let's start with some facts about these insects.


fact number ONE: There are more than 6 million species of insects in the world!

"Vegeta, what does the scouter says about their power level?"

Yes, one conservative estimation is that there are between 6 million to 10 million species of insects in the world! To put that in a another perspective, we have only about 5,500 species of mammals on earth, and 6 million species is about 80% of the world's animal species. Talk about variety.

Gotta Eat 'Em All!

And assuming the average life span of a human is about 78 years (a very generous number, given that the world average is about 70), if we were to eat one different species of insect everyday of our life from the day we were born, we will need at least 35 lives to taste every single species of insects on earth!



fact number TWO: Insects are more massive than humans.

What? No way, right? We all know humans are bigger than insects. But wait... What I mean by massive is - to possess more mass.

Awh... Life isn't always fair, I know.

For every human, there is another 200 to 2,000 kilograms of insects. They have more dry mass compared to us! :O  Makes us wonder if this is a planet of the humans or the planet of the insects eh?


fact number THREE: Insects are the very foundation of an ecosystem. (Yeah yeah okay, plants are too)

One less topic to study in your biology class.

The fact of the matter is, if all the insects disappeared today, withing a few decades if not a few years, all animals (and possibly most of the plants) will go extinct. The ecosystems that are so highly dependent on insects for food source, pollination, decomposition, will be thrown into a mess so big that the other organisms will not have sufficient time to adapt and evolve to fill in the niches. However, if humans were to go extinct, the only animals that will suffer (ever so slightly) are the domesticated farm animals, but do not worry, domesticated animals can within their lifetime turn from docile pets into wild animals, becoming what they were like before humans came and played dress-em-up with them like little barbie dolls, they will find their way back to a self-sustaining population.

So next time you think of killing those pesky flies and mosquitoes, spare a thought for these little creatures, but kill them anyway.


fact number FOUR: More than 1,000 species of insects are being eaten worldwide.

Critter platter anyone?

And people don't just eat it as a snack or a delicacy, some population in the world eats insect as a legitimate food source. In other words, insects are their proper meal.

It's like buying meat, only, they come in smaller portions.

Like there is a market (in an economic sense) for meats and vegetables respectively, there are also markets for insects. People buy and sell insects like we buy and sell our food. There are restaurants and stalls that offer you a variety of insects that you can choose to eat. Heck there are even candies that are made of insects. Gross? Not to them apparently.

One wormipop, coming through

fact number FIVE: You have been eating insects all the while!

Don't throw up. Believe it or not, even in developed countries, people eat at least 500 grams of insects or insect-derived products per YEAR. That means, if you are at about my age (almost 19), you would have eaten about 10 kilos of bugs, holy mama! You know how much is 10 kilograms? That is about 3 million ants! Or 100 goliath bettle, the heaviest insect in the world. Honestly, neither sounds tasty at all.

One nasty motherfucker to swallow.

How do you come to ingest 500 grams of insects you ask? Well, for one, you eat them accidentally sometimes, partially or whole. Like ants in your water which sometimes are too small to be noticed, or tiny flies sticking to your favorite candy. You don't notice, because they don't taste like much, probably because they were too small to trigger enough of your taste buds to recognize it as a distinct flavor.

A large portion of them come from your processed foods. Almost all foods are processed in some ways, usually the aim is to allow the food to last longer without spoiling. But know this, not all processing methods are flawless. There are times when the food are being processed from the raw materials, such as crops, the insects that lives in or just happen to be passing by the food are not removed thoroughly.

Now it comes with REAL bugs!

And that's okay as long as they meet the requirements of the food safety standards; for example a 250ml canned fruit juice meets the safety requirements as long as it contains less than 5 fruit fly eggs AND 2 larvae. Enjoy slurping your slurpy next time. :)

Also known as surimi sticks

Crab sticks, I'm sure everyone of us had eaten this before. Perhaps one of our favorite imitation food, crab sticks are actually, well, not made of crabs but fish meats. But fish meat is white, it's not red. Where does the red in crab sticks come from?

Well, it comes from a red color dye called cochineal, which is used widely as red food coloring. It is also used to dye fabrics. And where does cochineal come from? *Drum rolls*...

The answer is... Cochineal!

Hi, here's my name card. *Squirts red juice on people*

Yes, it actually comes from the beetle of the same name. And it is estimated that around 160 tonnes of these stuffs are produced each year. Imagine how much beetle juice we are drinking.

Cochineal cocktail anyone?

The last fact might gave you a little bit of a scare. But speaking of which, it is a nice bridge to the next section of this post --->

Why should we eat insects?

Big question. Why should we eat them? Aren't we doing fine with chickens and beef and pork?

Well, the most important argument is that, it helps to reduce, if not solve, a few of the global issues that humanity are facing, namely - world hunger and feeding a growing population, and environment (sort of, but we'll see).

Super Bug here to save the day!

Let's start with famine - the eternal state of hunger.

How do eating insects help solve world hunger. Well, it doesn't solve world hunger directly, but think about this for a second, if we are to incorporate insects into our daily meal, then we will certainly have enough food for everyone in the world (well actually we do have enough food for everyone in the world, but let's just for the sake of argument say that we don't, which reflects the reality).

Remember, insects are abundant. They are everywhere. People don't have to import insects from other countries like we do with other meat products (i.e. beef from New Zealand), they just have to look at their backyard and search for these critters to feast on.

It is low cost, almost zero if we do insect foraging ourselves. It's everywhere, though sometimes you'll have to know where to look for it.

And in terms of food value it is comparable to the meat that we consume if compared them pound by pound. Insects have nutritional qualities on par with meat!

While we are at it, let us consider this. By the year 2050, we are going to have a world population of 9 billion! Can you imagine feeding 9 billion people, when we can't even feed 6.5 billion? Where are the extra food going to come from?

We eat to evolve, then we evolve to eat.

That is a 30% increase in population; according to some estimation we are going to need a 70% increase in food production just to meet the food demand, not a 30% equivalent. Why? Because as population grows, so do the number of the wealthy, and rich people eat considerably more than what their body need, hence more food per person.

About 70% of our agricultural lands are dedicated to rear livestocks. In other words, only about 30% of agricultural lands are really used for agriculture. So if we were to have an increase in population, and more and more people are eating more and more meat, how are we going to find all the lands to produce it? Deforestation? I don't know, but it sure spells disaster for the environment.

Eat, Fart, Pollute, Be Eaten. Repeat cycle.

Speaking of the environment, remember the methane gas that cows produce when they excrete their wastes? Those are known to be greenhouse gases (GHG) and contribute to global warming, and they are 20 times more potent as GHG than carbon dioxides!

So if we were to produce more beef, doesn't that means more GHGs? Yes, in a way, and we will need a hell lot more resources to feed the cows.

Feeding a cow is an expensive business, for every 10kg of feed you feed a cow, 9kg of those will come out at the rear end as crap manure. So, in a sense, cow is 10% food and 90% shit.

But insects however, are much more efficient at eating. For every 10kg of insect feed, only 1kg will be excreted, and the other 9kg is absorbed.

So with a 10kg of input, which one would you prefer? A 1kg return? Or a 9kg return? There's no need an economics major to answer the question.

If we eat insects, we can solve almost all of the problems listed above.

Heck they can even build their own apartments.

Firstly, insects do not require that much space to live. And unlike conventional livestocks, they can occupy a 3D space instead of a 2D space - They can climb vertical walls, stand upside-down, fly, stack on top of each other - which means more production with less space.

And it come with individual rooms.

Upkeep resources are significantly lower. You do not bathe the insects, you do not feed them a lot of food. They are easy to rear, and they reproduce ridiculously fast. So, less money, more food, everyone's a happy fat man (or woman).

There will also be less greenhouse gases, however I'm not sure if they produce any at all (they breath out carbon dioxides though). Change beef production to insect production, no more methane farts, voila~



It is not the matter of "should we eat insects?", it is the matter of "when?". Because frankly speaking, I cannot think of any other way we can meet the food demand of this growing human population. Unless we all become vegetarian, otherwise the next best way is to explore insects as a main food source.

I am not saying that we should all start devouring all insects that we can get our hands on though, don't do that, uncooked insects are potentially harmful. But I'm talking about having an industry, like the poultry industry or agriculture industry or things like that.

But despite all these, again, you can call me a hypocrite, but I'm definitely not changing my diet to insect-based any time soon. XD



Oh by the way, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone.

Hope you all enjoyed this edition of brain stew.

Till next time, cheers~

Leaky Wiki

Hey guys, I'm doing a short write-up about the recent "big news" surrounding the international scene - WikiLeaks. Flip any newspapers for the past week or two, you will see at least a column dedicated to the development of the event.

Now if you haven't been reading the news and don't know what I'm talking about, it's okay, I don't know what am I talking about either. LOL. Ahem, okay, let's move on.

So the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, was arrested and then released on bail just a few days ago.

Wanted: Raped Sweet Swedes 

He is now currently charged with a sex offense by the Swedish judiciary, and many governments, especially the States, are vying to get hold of him so that he can be tried and be put away once and for all for leaking thousands of secret documents.

If I may comment on this issue, I must say, I really applaud his courage for standing out in the face of the controversy. One may argue that it had done much good to the world, that people and nations will benefit from the information transparency. There are people who hail him as a hero, leading the revolution against the oppressive governments (Huah, just like the movie V for Vendetta).

But as much as I want to give him ALL the credit people think he deserves, I have to point out that this is not his victory; it is the victory of the people and the information technology.

WikiLeaks (or a common misconception, Julian Assange himself) will not be where it is right now had not the people submitting the documents. Where else did you think the WikiLeaks team get their materials for publication?

Also, another thing that WikiLeaks couldn't have triumphed without - the information technology itself. The global communications network has grown to the point where information can easily travel half a globe away with just a few clicks of a button. Certainly you couldn't imagine doing that with telegrams or even telephones can you? And, if it wasn't for the technology, he couldn't have garnered massive support from people around the world (imagine if Jesus had the internet and facebook at his time).

So before we all jump to label him as a (and the only) freedom fighter for information libertarianism, think about what I said. He is not the sole hinge in overthrowing information secrecy of the governments, he is just a lightning rod, taking the hits for the cause. However, again, I do have to say I applaud him for his courage even though it means putting his life on the line.



Moving on, I do have to criticize WikiLeaks on their recent leak of US diplomatic cables. The leak of the diplomatic cables (the communication between the US government and US embassies in other countries, sometimes including criticisms of the host countries of the embassies) not only does no good to the international community at large, it stirs up tension between the US and the other countries, which was uncalled for and unnecessary. To put it in a perspective that is more relatable, it's like someone recording the conversation between our PM and DPM saying that Chinese and Indians are pendatang and releasing it to everyone in Malaysia intentionally, even though that does nothing but to spread animosity.

The purpose of diplomacy is to create good relations between countries. Regardless of what the countries think of each other, a peaceful relationship will always benefit both parties more than a hostile one - less military spendings, more economic growth. So for once, I must disagree with WikiLeaks for leaking the diplomatic cables, they should have known better than to create more bickering between nations in the already-nearing-World-War-3-world (oh yeah, read about North and South Korea, I'm afraid they are near boiling points. If they go to war, I'm sure China and US will get involved too. :S ).



Alright. That's all for today, time for me to go stoning.



Till next time, cheers.

Of Suicide and (stupid) Peoples

I believe you would had seen in the news a couple of days ago that a guy, 22 years of age, committed suicide because of a failure in a relationship. He jumped off a 14-story building and died due to excessive loss of blood in the next morning. But before he died, he posted a suicide note on his facebook page, and even did a countdown to the time of his suicide.

Well at first his friends and family didn't know what he was up to, except that it was kind of freaking her sister out (try googling, you can probably find the facebook comments exchange between him and his sister). In his text replies in facebook at that time he did sound normal though, or rather, look normal (can't hear written words right?), like most of us would - typing using rojak words, with mandatory smileys at the end of each sentence. No one suspected anything at all, until it happened.

Now, when I heard of the news. I was extremely disturbed; there are a few reasons why and I shall talk about them one by one.

Killing himself because of a broken heart

The only worse way to die is to break your heart, literally.

People does a lot of things to kill themselves everyday, intentionally or otherwise. Suicide, of course, is a way of dying where people consciously choose to end their own lives.

There are a number of good reasons why a person would want to kill him or herself, such as in the case of the kamikaze pilots of Japan, where they fly their fighter airplanes straight into enemy targets, thus ensuring maximum control in hitting the target. The downside was, obviously, the pilot has to die in the collision, but the soldiers say it's a way to show love and patriotism for the country, to die for the country is of the greatest honor. The further justification is that because it is tactically superior (provided you have enough crazy pilots and airplanes of course).

But killing himself because his ex-girlfriend didn't want to accept him again, is that justifiable? How can a person, really, want to die because of broken heart, I do not know.

If he were to die protecting his ex-girlfriend from something, yes, that would be really admirable, in fact I would applaud him for his brave sacrifice. But he did not, he chose to end his own life, for whatever reasons clearly unknown and instead of people benefiting from the situation, it made things worse. Like, 12984798179789758917592858 times worse, for his family, friends, and not to mention, the person who will be feeling the guilt the most - his ex-girlfriend.

What was he trying to do really?

Life is cheap like this

It's okay, I'm free anyway

That was the message he gave (not the sole message however), that life is so cheap, that when a person feels like he don't want to live anymore, he or she can just end his or her life, without really considering the consequences.

And to die for a petty reason such as a failed relationship, it further amplifies the message. 

Many kids in the poorer areas of the world - Africa, Latin America, South Asia, they were born into families that cannot support them in terms of the most basic needs. Everyday life is a struggle for them, and having just clean water and food, to them, is the equivalent of us staying in a luxury 5-star resort for a weekend. A lot of them do not make it to adulthood, and those who do face constant threat of epidemic diseases, with not chance of getting medical treatment. They really want to live, but alas, the world is unfair sometimes, they were just unfortunate to be born in the situation they are in, and dying early is a fated affair, them having almost no control over it.

But this person, born in a beautiful country of Malaysia, with no immediate natural or economical crisis, into a decent family, having more than human basic needs, took everything for granted and chose, I repeat, consciously chose to end his own life, when at the same time the unfortunates all around the world are trying to live, choosing to live, despite facing the prospect of dying in a near future. 

Do you not see the problem with his thinking? 

And if you ask me, this is the reason I will not give him the respect due, because he does not value his own life, which could not had happened had the paths of his parents did not entwine and they did not get married, or had they decided to have sex copulate on another day instead of the day where the embryo destined to mature into him were formed.

Instant celebrity status

It's like Hollywood, except that I'm in heaven

I doubt if this is what he had in mind when he committed suicide (who can be sure, though?), but take a search in facebook, type in his name and see what comes out.

Yes, you are right, fan pages. No, not singular, but the plural "fan pages". And if that does not disturb you, take a look at the number of subscribers of the pages, it goes well over 40 thousand for the more popular ones. But even the lesser ones had amounted thousands of not tens of thousands of facebook "likers".

What is wrong with these people really? What are they trying to do, making a fan page?

Are they trying to glorify this death? Worshiping him as a celebrity? Sorry if this sounds wrong, but I can't think of any other reason a sane person would create or like these pages. You can argue that the pages are used for  commemoration purposes, but doesn't that mean that his death has more value, and therefore, deserves to be noticed by more people?

If anything at all, these pages are telling people that posting suicide notes on facebook and committing suicide is "cool", and can have bad influences on people, especially the younger people (and by young I mean those teenagers less than 18 years of age) who can sometimes be immature enough to follow bad trends.

And as for the people who subscribed to these pages, what are you doing? Are you promoting the same values that these pages are trying to instill? Stop liking the pages. Stop posting R.I.P. notes there. It's none of your fucking business he died. If you are just doing that with good intentions, try justifying why didn't you do the same for the gazillions of people who died for a better reason or a better cause.

There are people who deserve those wishes more than this lad here, many more who were forgotten but contributed to the society more. These are the ones that you should be wishing, not him, not when all he cares about is himself. Of selflessness and selfishness, are we really trying to tell people that the latter deserves more recognition?

p.s. If there's a fan page related to this incident that you should like at all, it is this.



Sigh, I think I should stop here. There are much more things I wanted to say about this incident, but I think I should just keep it to myself. But really, people, be more mature okay? It's okay to be kids sometimes, but not when it shows your infinite stupidity.



That is all for today. For my next post, I think I shall write about something in response to my friend's facebook posts about some conspiracies and new world order. Hopefully I can prepare my materials in time, and have it posted up in a couple of days.

Till next time, cheers.

A Little Disclaimer

Hi guys. First of all, I am sorry that I had not the time to blog as I have initially planned. I was busy working on my university application, especially the essays (on second thought, I take back my apology, it was a justifiable break).

So anyway, I think it is time I do a little introduction about the blog. First of all, I don't have a theme for my blog, I write about anything under the sun. But usually, you will find that it contains criticism, opinion, or stuffs like that.

Here, though, I would like to advise you, that the most essential thing to bring along each time you drop by the blog is... your brain! Yes, brain is important,  without it you couldn't read, think, digest, argue, or enjoy the things I write in my blog, so please bear in mind about that.

Secondly, there may be times you will not agree with me, that's fine, because I am smarter than you then enlighten me, let me know why. But never argue emotionally instead of rationally, because that's probably the reason why you disagreed with me in the first place.

Lastly, my aim here is to have fun writing, so if you like what I do, it's my pleasure; if you don't like what I do, too bad lor.




Oh oh one more thing. In case you were wondering, yes, I got my blog title from the Green Day song of the same name. But other than that it has nothing to do whatsoever with the song. The reason why I chose the name is because, uh, because it's just random.


Signing off and see you pretty soon. I mean, REAL soon.



Cheers.

I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!

O HAI DERE!! Welcome to Brain Stew Pot dot bee-ass dot com.

Don't mind the lack of furnishing and the gay background, I figured out my time is better spent on writing (something that people don't care) than on the aesthetics of the blog. (It's not like you'll treat my blog as an art gallery anyway.)

SO! You are here, reading the first post of my blog, what next? Close this tab right now, and go sit at a corner and cry. Go.




Just go.




Still here?




You sure you want to read what do I have to say?




O rly?




Okay then.




WAIT!!!




Are you really really sure?




Confem?




Ok




This time it's for real




I have something to tell you...




Listen carefully...




The thing is...




I am your father




No no not that.




It is this...




Click here




There you go...




That's what I have to say




Good night... : )




Cheers,
Chris