# Food Prediction: We'll be eating bugs within 10 years **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 23, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915 "2016-04-23T16:39:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/41 "2016-04-25T01:07:23Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > But in the US that is not, in fact, what the cows are eating. They eat things like corn, which could be eaten by human beings. Yes and no. Animal feed is made from a variety of products, much of which is the leftovers from other agricultural uses. Lots of this is never intended for human consumption, but for a variety of non-food uses anyway. On the flipside, cattle are very frequently grazed on land that would be expensive to intensively farm. It doesn’t take a very irregular landscape before it becomes difficult to employ the mechanical tools that make farming so productive. It’s also much more reasonable to hold animals on small or strangely-shaped plots instead of trying to farm them. I also noticed this [map](https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2002/Ag_Atlas_Maps/Livestock_and_Animals/Cattle/Cattle%20and%20Calves/Cattle%20on%20Feed%20-%20Inventory%20as%20Percent%20of%20Cattle%20and%20Calves.gif) which suggests that feed is not as important as grazing. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/42 "2016-04-25T01:12:25Z")
And… on the flip side “corn fed beef” is a selling point, used extensively in advertising to basically say “our meat is better”. There are differences between corn fed and grass fed beef in texture and flavor. Personally, I enjoy both but in the US most of it is corn-fed, at least at the end of the animal’s life. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/43 "2016-04-25T02:56:36Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > What advantage do insects have over soybeans or wheat gluten? What would lead a producer or consumer looking to replace beef to choose cricket patties over tofu or seitan or various other vegetable options? Not only do both soya and gluten represent allegens in a not insignificant proportion of the population, gluten is not a complete protein (does not have all of the essential amino acids) and while soya is technically a complete protein it doesn’t really have the right balance of proteins to be a complete source by itself. The bioavailabilty of protein from processed soya is also somewhat questionable. Protein from animal sources, on the other hand, is almost definitionally complete and is readily bioavailable, and are also highly efficient in terms of protein delivery to plate. > [@turner](#): > > I think it would take a real crisis to get there. Americans will try novel, but there are certain taboos we’re hard pressed to get over in day to day eating. If other alternatives like beef, pork and grain are available, I think it will be hard to get over the ew factor. Both beef and pork are inefficient and highly polluting forms of dietary protein. (Aside from the solid/liquid waste factor, they both produce copious amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas which is 25 times a significant as carbon dioxide in terms of global average temperature influence even though it breaks down relatively quickly in the atmosphere.) No cereal or true pulse except soya is a complete protein (quinoa is not a true cereal, and global cultivation could not provide suffiicent protein or caloric content to replace animal proteins). Currently, the major sources of proteins for Americans are processed meet products (i.e. “finely textured beef” e.g. pink slime) and processed and whole chicken. Chicken is at least a reasonably efficient protein source, but the challenge in all mammalian and avian cultivation for food is the proclivity to serve as a host and reservoir for disease which can both travel through the herd/flock when cultivated in high density and make a cross-species jump to humans. We are constantly on the cusp of a potential regional epizoetic owning to how we cultivate food animals and the limited means to prevent disease transmission. The US hasn’t experienced an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease in nearly a century (_Hud_ aside) but if it did–and many epidemiologists warn that it is only a matter of time–we could lose entire herds of tens of thousands. The same is true of foreign sources of beef or pork, except that we may not have prior notice and could have a global pandemic on our hands. The same is true if signs of disease like variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (a.k.a. Mad Cow disease) were found in US herds, which is something the beef industry has been fighting screening over for decades. Insects, on the other hand, are evolved to grow in dense, colony-like structures. They seem largely immune to catastrophic viral epidemics for reasons not fully understood, and the cross-species transmission of viruses evolved in insect populations to humans or other mammals is rare (although blood-eating insects can serve as vectors for such viruses and other parasites). Insects and other arthropods are very efficient protein sources. In fact, we consume other arthropods with gusto; lobster, prawns/shrimp, and crawfish are all basically aquatic versions of insects that we eat essentially whole (after tearing them out of their exoskeletons). Although most insects are not as accessible as a nice barbequed shrimp, it is not a large leap to go from shrimp salad to termite risotto. A hundred years ago, lobster were considered good for nothing but fertilizer and abalone was peasant food; now they’ve become so popular they’ve been almost catastrophically overharvested. > [@Chronos](#): > > Beef is actually a highly efficient way of raising food. There are large expanses of land in the world where absolutely nothing fit for human consumption will grow sustainably, but which can grow grass. So humans raise cattle to eat the grass, and then eat the cattle. Compared to the nothing you’d get without the cattle, this is huge. Except that free-ranging of cattle, while probably the best method to raise them, is very labor intensive. Virtually all cattle produced for meat consumption (other than the paltry amount specifically produced for the all-organic crowd) are grown in feedlots, provided a diet of proteinized cornmeal (which is the remains of their predecessors ground up and sanitized), and essentially force fed to grow to maturity as quickly as possible using accelerator hormones. If we actually had to produce enough beef to feed the world its requisite protein diet, each person would have a physical footprint of several square kilometers and a carbon footprint that would probably rival all of the coal currently being burned for electical power production. The vast majority of the world’s population doesn’t eat beef on a daily basis because we just can’t afford it. Insects and other arthropods are a valuable source of protein with the least environmental impact. In fact, for long term human space missions and indefinite habitation, crawfish and insects are pretty much the only viable source of fresh protein. (While proteins in controlled storage break down more slowly than lipids, they can’t survive indefinitely and will be degraded by cosmic radiation, so there will be a need to carry sources of protein production to ensure optimium nutrition for missions extending over several years.) Given the degradation in fish stocks and fishery habitats over the last few decades, we might as well accept that much of the world, including the United States and Europe, is going to have to at least supplement protein needs with insects. The major food production companies are already investigating how to market insects to the industrial world. And frankly, insects are no worse than slimy, bacteria-ridden chicken or fish. It’s just a matter of persepctive and acclimatization. If we can sell it as “astronaut food”, just like those repulsive ‘Dippin’ Dots’ then it’s an easy sell. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/44 "2016-04-25T03:31:03Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > What about the shitburger scientists created a few years ago using processed fecal matter? I agree that we’re better off having that option than not having it, but it don’t think “soylent brown” is going to be the next foodie craze. And yet it has the same pros and cons as insect meat: it’s much more efficient, cheap, readily available, and sustainable than beef, meets a very real need for sustainable food (which we are currently capable of meeting only through the numerous other options already discussed), and most people in the US find the concept utterly disgusting. > > Do you disagree? Do you think shit will be the new sirloin? Something tells me shitburgers aren’t kosher. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/45 "2016-04-25T13:13:30Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > But in the US that is not, in fact, what the cows are eating. They eat things like corn, which could be eaten by human beings. The corn that cows eat could be eaten by people but in the US people and cows eat different varieties of corn. The varieties eaten by people are harder to grow because of pests, their yields are lower per acre, they are more expensive to transport, they need to be eaten much quicker, and they are much more difficult to store. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/46 "2016-04-25T14:49:18Z")
Bottom line is that cows don’t need to eat corn. They live quite well on grasses and the like. The acreage that grows feed corn can be devoted to food crops for people, or that “feed corn” can be used for other purposes than feeding cows which means acreage currently devoted to producing corn for industry could be reduced if we stopped needlessly feeding grains to cattle. Then there’s the problem of cattle waste, feed lots, and other aspects of the whole industry that are damaging. The way cattle is grown for meat in the west is wasteful and ecologically damaging. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/47 "2016-04-25T15:02:56Z")
And the reason for the glut of corn is purely political. No one with presidential aspirations wants to piss off Iowa. So we artificially make corn cheap with subsidies and we need to find uses for it like HFCS instead of sugar or honey and ethanol. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/48 "2016-04-25T15:24:39Z")
I think you severely underestimate out ability to feed ourselves and our cows. I don’t see this happening anytime in my grandchildren’s, or their grandchildren’s, lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/49 "2016-04-25T15:26:17Z")
As an American farmer I can tell you meat (beef and pork) is not going anywhere or going to be priced out of existence. If that was true I’d be getting way more money for my beef but lately prices have fallen. Tofu, which is soybeans, is also a viable protein source and soybean prices have also fallen. No, we wont be eating bugs anytime soon unless its some sort of fad food item. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/50 "2016-04-25T15:27:21Z")
If you’re talking about, say, Americans - sure we can feed ourselves, our cows, our dogs and cats… A slice of the rest of the world though, has more problems with just feeding the people. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2016, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915/51 "2016-05-03T04:40:32Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > As an American farmer … Interesting name/occupation combo. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-prediction-well-be-eating-bugs-within-10-years/752915.md?page=2)