I’ve wondered about this before, just from the perspective of North Americans. Bugs that live in the water? Delicious and fine to eat. Actually look at a shrimp, though. If it lived on the surface people would never consider eating that. I also noticed a lot of people don’t really realize that at some point shrimp have heads. What gets me is how people have strong feelings but don’t seem to have thought it through.
if that lived on the surface you’d never consider eating it
If it lived on the surface and tasted like shrimp I’d have to be convinced once and only once.
The thing is most people here are completely revolted by the idea of eating insects and would not consider trying to eat one to find out. It’s a lot more being viscerally repelled than any analysis of flavor.
Okay but that’s entirely a cultural thing. There are cultures that readily and enthusiastically eat insects. There are cultures that are disgusted by pork, or beef. There’s at least one culture I can think of where the average person is viscerally disgusted by the idea of eating garlic or onion because harvesting the plant necessitates killing it.
The presumption in this whole thread is that there is something essential to insects that makes them wrong and bad to eat. Everyone in this thread is, of course, welcome to eat anything that they like, but if you’re disgusted by insects that’s something that’s been cultivated in you rather than something inherent to insects.
Besides, there are a near infinite number of things we eat routinely that I think most of us would find disgusting if we hadn’t been conditioned to it. Think about oysters. Who was the first person to think “I’m gonna bash this rock with that rock and eat the booger that lives in the middle?” Someone who was absolutely right, because oysters are delicious, but still had to be very brave to try it at first. Don’t even get me started on the myriad cultured and fermented foods that we all eat on the regular…
Sure, it’s absolutely a cultural thing. If you look back to what I said originally, I specified people in North America. I’m aware that it’s different in other cultures and I agree. The fermented food thing is interesting too, like, cheese… okay, we’ll squirt some stuff out of a large mammal’s breasts, leave it sitting around in a cave to be digested by bacteria for a while, then consume it with great joy. And of course, some cultures like China don’t consume milk or cheese at all (last I knew), while in nearby Mongolia, fermented yak’s milk is popular. On some level that would be horrifying, such as I am horrified by ‘stinky tofu’ but I love bleu cheese. I also have similar feelings about oysters and clams, like, why would I eat this bizarre weird bug living on the bottom of a lake?
So really what I mean is it’s interesting how people have such firm feelings and beliefs about what sort of food is appetizing or not based on culture. It’s essentially all upbringing, societal pressure, familiarity and habit, and nothing at all about rationality.
If it’s a cultural thing that means at one time it wasn’t that way, and it can change back. That’s all.
I do sincerely worry about insects being added as filler materials as time goes on. I have a shellfish allergy, and the same allergens that exist in the shells of shellfish also exist in most insects.
XKCD 1268 by Randall Munroe (CC BY-NC 2.5).
Transcription:
Imagine you were transported to an alternate universe just like your own, except people occasionally ate spiders. You can’t convince anyone this is weird. [[Two figures stand. A woman is holding a big spider. The other figure looks shocked. There is another spider on the floor.]] Woman: Mmm… Figure: No! What are you doing!? This is how I feel about lobster.
{{Title text: As best as I can tell, I was transported here from Earth Prime sometime in the late 1990s. Your universe is identical in every way, except for the lobster thing and the thing where some of you occasionally change your clocks for some reason.}}
I don’t get what you’re trying to tell me.
vegetarians
Aka [Eating bugs without knowing you’re eating bugs]
well obviously wet bugs are cleaner since they’re surrounded by water all the time
Shrimps is bugs
wontfix
Fuck yes, people freak out about eating crickets or shit but then proceed to eat a huge spiderlike creature that’s mushy inside (crabs)
Wet bugs are very distantly related to earth bugs.
Won’t you eat chicken just because pidgeons are disgusting? (yet also eaten sometimes)
Pigeons are delicious though
Pigeons literally exist in the us because they were imported for food iirc
Crustaceans are the closest relatives of insects.
Sea bugs are delicious and have more meat than land bugs, I’ve eat crickets before and it’s 80% bones/ definitely not meat and 20% actual meat
You’ve eaten interesting crickets. Those that I know have no bones.
Exoskeleton is still a form of bone, I use bone because it’s shorter
It’s not though. Bone is a fundamentally different material.
We knew what you meant, mind.
I’m pretty sure I gobbled up a spider and/or a small stink bug while eating berries the other day
Oh well
A good source of protein along with the carbs.
People eat bugs all over the planet.
Fun fact… lobster and crayfish were so disdained once that it was literally only used to feed prisoners.
Removed by mod
Thanks for sharing 👍
Will you get in the pod?
Well, wet bug meat are actually tasty, those land bugs are mostly chitin shells and not much protein, also the taste is not good.
Chocolate covered crickets, at least, are a regional delicacy. I’m sure some culture has figured out how to prepare large beetles and centipedes as well.
