Interesting Links for 20-11-2018

[andrewducker]

Edible insects: Expensive, taste of sawdust, and have too many eyes.

I really can't see people paying _more_ to eat insects! If insect protein was cheap, and turned into a delicious paste of some kind, then maybe...
(tags: food insects )

Italy’s olive crisis intensifies as deadly tree disease spreads

(tags: disease food italy trees fail )

5 Ways Smart People Sabotage Their Success

(tags: Intelligence problems advice )

This Giant Automated Cricket Farm Is Designed To Make Bugs A Mainstream Source of Protein

(tags: food insects )

Everyone's united against Theresa May yet she's never seemed so upbeat. When you think about it, the reason is clear

(tags: politics UK europe )

Theresa May: how dare you say we EU nationals ‘jumped the queue’?

(tags: conservatives bigotry OhForFucksSake )

Brexit deal: Ministers back down and agree to publish analysis comparing impact of Theresa May's plan with remaining in EU

(tags: europe uk )

Reality Check: Can you be 'employed' for one hour's work?

(tags: statistics employment unemployment uk )

My oldest outstanding Kickstarter has concluded. Only five years late!

(tags: games kickstarter )

Germany ends arm sales to Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi killing

(tags: Germany military saudiarabia )

A friend has posted a photo of themselves. What should you do?

(tags: advice etiquette photos )

When Randy Milholland met Neil Gaiman

(tags: neilgaiman comics life )

Jeremy Corbyn doesn't understand that the transition period is reliant on the withdrawal agreement

(tags: labour UK europe OhForFucksSake )

Comments

Reality Check: Can you be 'employed' for one hour's work?

[jack]

Can't they count people in proportion to how much of a normalised working week they work? :(

Re: Reality Check: Can you be 'employed' for one hour's work?

[andrewducker]

I'm sure they could, if someone asked them to.

[franklanguage]

The thing about edible insects is: you're assuming beef, pork, lamb, and chicken are going to continue being viable and economical to raise for meat in the future. However, insects are far easier to raise and transport for those people who feel they need an animal source of protein.

Insects are more convenient and economical, and when dried into a powder, can also be convenient to add as a supplementary protein source to be added to food. In other countries, there are already people eating insects—and as the article mentions, you're probably already eating the occasional bug in flour and the like.

In fact, cricket flour is readily available and has been for years. In other countries, insects don't have the "ick!" factor they do in the west. See Entomophagy.

[andrewducker]

Yes, the issue is that the cricket flour is $20\lb. Bring it down to a price competitive with other protein sources and we'll get somewhere.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm not sure I see your actual insects catching on as a food source. I don't get the impression that eating them is considered a pleasure.

But going in to a flour or paste or a broth at a price point significantly below £40/kg I can see. Bit of a fight brewing between insect protein, vat grown meat and robotically farmed blue water fish.

I wonder how fussy the crickets are about their own food. Will they happily eat food waste?

Can we feed them to fish? Or to cows and pigs? Or use them as pet food?

[franklanguage]

Well, speaking as a vegan, I've got no skin in this game; as far as I know, I'm not protein-deficient, and neither are most vegans.

So, doing the conversions, £40/kg works out to $51.42 today. [An aside: wow, that's sad! When I was a kid, a pound was worth at least $2.50!]

I'm not sure that insect protein powder, which is considered high-quality protein, is too overpriced at $50 a kilo; it's something that gets added to food, not the food itself.

I'm not even considering [intentionally] eating insect protein ever in my life; most people get too much protein, not too little. Also, plant-based proteins are easier for the body to take, and therefore cause fewer health problems. (Osteoporosis is one condition associated with getting too much animal-based protein.)

[danieldwilliam]

I'm sure you are right about all of that. However, as a business plan, telling people they ought to buy your product even though it is more expensive and considered by them to be less good is an uphill struggle. it's exactly the same situation as solar panels. At $100,000 a kilowatt still probably better economically in the very long run, still better for the environment, still the morally superior choice, still not selling. At $1,000 per kilowatt they are flying off the shelves.