[tomjen3]

Unlikely. They are icky, unappealing and do not have the "man" quality one gets from real meat.

Food is mostly about taste and convenience today, because we have access to enough of it - insects doesn't really give you either.

In short it is highly unlikely that I will wake up tomorrow and eat insects, nor that the majority in the developed world will.

And yes shrimp may technically be insects. Technically correct does nothing for the ick factor.

[neuronic]

There have been successful attempts at simply grinding the insects and making them into "meatballs" etc. All that's left over is a sand-like form of them that is highly nutritious and can be processed further.

Sustainability may be a choice today, but it won't be in the future. That's not even a debate.

Looking at r/fitness and trillions of similar boards online, people are readily willing to chug down any sort of powder without need for control through FDA etc. You know, for them "gainz".

So if insects' weird forms are never even detectable by your eyes or tongue, than why should people shy away from them?

I find it pretty crazy that a mental image of a cricket is considered more unappetizing than a bleeding out cow, than a pig kept in a 5ft x 5ft space for all of its life, than newborn chicks ground to shreds by some vacuuming grinding machine because they aren't profitable etc....

[IndianAstronaut]

You can also convert soy into 'meatballs' as well. It hasn't caught on widely either. Taste is the deciding factor.

[amyjess]

In the case of soy-based fakemeat, it's more about texture than taste. The taste isn't that hard to get down; good luck getting it to have the same mouthfeel as a slice of bacon or a nice, juicy steak though.

[jerf]

You didn't read the article. I can tell because my initial reaction was much like yours, but after reading an article all about cricket flour I realize it doesn't matter to the topic at hand. What obstacles there are to serving people whole insects are perhaps not wholly absent to serving them as an invisible ingredient, but are certainly greatly less.

If insects are going to be introduced into the American diet, this is exactly how it will start. And may well end; I could easily see whole insects never going mainstream. But... they don't have to.

[JoeAltmaier]

Lobster is a bug; it used to be 'ick' and now its 'yum'. The ick factor is cultural. No reason the OP can't be right - if bugs are tasty, and some people start eating them, and then more people, they could easily become a regular thing.

[Nursie]

I have a friend who is an entomologist, a doctor of entomology no less. He doesn't eat lobster, or any other type of mollusc, on the basis that they filter-feed and will quite happily chow down on faeces, just like any other insect.

Mind you he finds the texture of boiled eggs repulsive too, so it might just be him.

[dingaling]

> on the basis that they filter-feed and will quite happily chow down on faeces

Just like cod, which my Hull fishing-town relatives taught me is a dirty, wormy fish unsuitable for consumption. All you can do with it is sell it to the naive land-lubbers...

[dragonwriter]

> lobster, or any other type of mollusc

Lobsters aren't molluscs, they're crustaceans.

Not even the same phylum.

[Nursie]

I didn't say I was a doctor of entomology :)

[gnoway]

So do plants, more or less.

[tomjen3]

Yeah after reading the article I am slightly less skeptical - the headline, as usual, war promising way too much.

That said we are going to look at a timeline of decades rather than tomorrow. I mean Tofu has been around for how long? And it is still somewhat of the beaten path.

[veemjeem]

People already eat bugs in other countries where bugs are hardly disgusting compared to their usual food. Convincing Americans to eat bug food might be harder, but Americans only make up of 5% of the earth's population. I've consumed roasted tarantulas in asian countries and they taste quite good, so I can see that insect consumption in those countries will be quite a bit easier.

[barrkel]

Lobster is 100% bug to me - huge yuck.

[pvaldes]

You should seriously consider to task it if not done yet, is simply delicious if properly prepared. Just keep trying, is just a cultural wall. You'll thank me in the future.

[bduerst]

That applies to more than just bugs. Given a long enough timeline, anything nutritious could become culturally mainstream. That doesn't guarantee that it will.

[yincrash]

I don't find lobsters scurrying behind my trashcan though.

[martindale]

Well, actually... http://i.ytimg.com/vi/z54da6-fz94/hqdefault.jpg

Okay, so it's a coconut crab, not a lobster, but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crab

[pvaldes]

One problem is that, in a world seing the vanishing of bees and other invertebrates by pesticides, insects are just not so reliable as source of safe food now.

[DanBC]

You don't eat wild insects because they could be carrying disease.

You eat farmed insects which are clean and you can be sure they're free of pesticides or other agrichemicals.

Farming insects uses less land and water than farming meat and is less problematic regarding cruelty.

[pvaldes]

"cruelty" is a false problem, a species of new religion that can accept as perfectly good move to set free a mink from other continent that you know will kill thousands of native birds later. Just a modern fairy tale, that did never prove to solve absolutely nothing. Is just manipulation.

If there is a market for bugs something will end selling ilegally wild bugs (cheaper, better profit margins). This is what history tells us again and again.

I really hope that we as species can be more smarter in the future about this. Famines are not caused by people not eating bugs, are caused by people creating wars by design, etc...

[vamur]

Lobsters, shrimps or mussles are actually delicious, and are thus expensive. Insects or dog/cat meat on the other aren't, as otherwise they would have been adopted into worldwide diet long time ago. So today they still remain a cheap source of food in some third world countries.

[Lethe101]

I hate to correct you, but this isn't correct (your 'downvoted' status might reflect this).

Canine / felines are carnivores (omnivores these days, but you get the gist) and their muscle structure / diets cause them to taste 'off' and be tough fleshwise. Not to mention that they're worth more as biological weapons / companions.

There are also more scientific reasons, for example:

There was a quick deterioration in the men's physical condition during this journey. Both men suffered dizziness; nausea; abdominal pain; irrationality; mucosal fissuring; skin, hair, and nail loss; and the yellowing of eyes and skin. Later Mawson noticed a dramatic change in his travelling companion. Mertz seemed to lose the will to move and wished only to remain in his sleeping bag. He began to deteriorate rapidly with diarrhoea and madness. On one occasion Mertz refused to believe he was suffering from frostbite and bit off the tip of his own little finger. This was soon followed by violent raging—Mawson had to sit on his companion's chest and hold down his arms to prevent him from damaging their tent. Mertz suffered further seizures before falling into a coma and dying on 8 January 1913.[8]

It was unknown at the time that Husky liver contains extremely high levels of vitamin A. It was also not known that such levels of vitamin A could cause liver damage to humans.[9] With six dogs between them (with a liver on average weighing 1 kg), it is thought that the pair ingested enough liver to bring on a condition known as Hypervitaminosis A. However, Mertz may have suffered more because he found the tough muscle tissue difficult to eat and therefore ate more of the liver than Mawson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Mawson#Australasian_An...

It is highly likely that if those explorers had asked the original breeders of said animals, they'd have been told strongly that eating them was a bad idea.

[convivialdingo]

Lewis and Clark ate plenty of dog, though I doubt they ate Huskies. I imagine they ate dog meat because it was generally available and more sanitary.

http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/read/?_xmlsrc=1806-05-0...

[Lethe101]

They ate dog because the tribes they were visiting had little else: when in areas with other game, they preferred that.

Clark never ate dog, couldn't bring himself to break the cultural taboo.

In the dry areas of what is now eastern Washington, in fact, where there was little if any game and the only other choice was dried salmon, usually impregnated with sand, the men came to prefer dog.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/12/1204_031204_...

[DanBC]

Oyster are expensive because rarity. They used to be food for poor people.

http://www.missfoodwise.com/2013/03/beef-stout-and-oyster-pi...

[pvaldes]

Expensive because they are classified as "luxury". More than 91.000 Kg of oysters produced each year in Europe exclusively for human food.

[jotux]

>Lobsters, shrimps or mussles are actually delicious, and are thus expensive. Insects or dog/cat meat on the other aren't

Deciding something is delicious or not has more to do with culture and upbringing than actual taste.

[pvaldes]

Tongue receptors are the same in all humans. If fresh, properly prepared and cooked by a competent cook, lobsters, shrimps and mussels are one of the finest foods available. If an insect or spider can taste like this I will try it.

Cats are said to taste pretty much like rabbit. Edible, but nothing really special.

[maxerickson]

The ability to taste some compounds varies. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylthiocarbamide

So everyone can taste bitter, but not always from the same things.

A similar thing is probably at work in people who find raw tomatoes extremely unpleasant.

[pvaldes]

I grant you that point. Food-allergies are also a problem.

[bluedino]

It would only take a generation to change that.

[mb_72]

Indeed - raise your kids to eat insects or insect products, and they won't think twice about it. My wife grew up in Eastern Europe and savours the thought of chowing down on blood sausage, whereas I grew up in Australia and it just seems like a 'scab tube' to me! Besides more extreme examples, most food is an acquired taste, and inspect / insect products would be no different.