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| "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!
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| "Vegeta, what does the scouter says about their power level?" |
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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.
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| 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.
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| 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)
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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. :)
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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).
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| 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?
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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~
