... I'm not going out to eat, anymore ~

Who can afford to eat out, anyway?

https://globalnews.ca/news/9386873/food-inflation-restaurant-prices-2023/

 

Wife and kids eat out at the occasional fast-food restaurant. I don't because I use a low sodium low fat diet - so I can't.

I bet it has been 10 to 15 years since the wife and I went out to a nice full-service sit-down restaurant. Even in our low-cost area this would easily exceed $100 and being a die-hard cheapskate, it hurts me to much to spend that type money on a dinner for two. I don't think I could enjoy it.

 

Yep, not sure why the enviro-cultists are pushing for us to start eating bugs but it won't be long now before PETI appears...People for the Ethical Treatment of Insects.
The world is going to hell in a handbasket!

 

My CFO and I like to dine out occasionally, and we're going to be traveling out of state soon to do so for the excuse of gathering with some extended family.
Fortunately, even though I was disadvantaged in growing up North of the Mason-Dixon line, I was rescued by a career in the military.

Our restaurant of choice includes the words "fish" and "camp" and features things mostly deep fried in peanut oil.
We will probably add about $60 to the tab, although owing to recent, deeply flawed energy policies in the US we will probably also spend most of that same sum on travel.

C'est la vie.

 

Is this on top of the bugs we're already eating?

 

On our first training trip to Japan our Trainers took us out to eat.

This was a very nice gesture from them.

To our horror the hors d'oeuvres were a serving dish containing live shrimp that when they took the lid off began trying to climb out of the serving dish. The Japanese Trainers began grabbing them and biting off the heads and sucking out the insides some didn't bother with biting off the heads.

I didn't join in although some of the Trainees did try them. I think it is supposed to be a delicacy..

 

i don't even do sushi

we've eaten out 14 out of the last 16 nights. delicious

 

If eating lower on the food chain to ensure 8 billion people don't bite the hand of the planet that feeds them then there will be enough for everyone's need rather than not enough for everyone's greed.

As in your version of "hell in a handbasket" sounds like my version of heaven in a wildflower planet with lots of bugs again! As in you can't pesticide to death the foundation the food chain is built on without it eventually causing blow back in the scarcity of what you like to eat.

Specifically:

Why fewer bug guts may be piling up on your car windshield - The Verge

New Report on Pesticides and Climate Change Reveals Threat of Vicious Cycle | Pesticide Action Network

 

A few bugs don't bug me, because I went through the whole thing in college about what is really in processed foods,

But was never much of one to eat out once I got through my 30s. THEN Last June, had not bought a burger and fries from the typical "drive-thru" for at least four years -- part of that being pandemic related.

Went to a West Coast chain -- Carl's Jr. -- sort of like Burger King, The tab for burger, fries, drink was around $13. WHAT! At least the plastic cup was reusable -- it's now in my shed doing duty as a bar oil pourer.

Damn, Yeah, I will do some "fancy restaurants" probably again before I die....but the MacD's, Burger Kings of the world. Shoo. Top Ramen with an egg mixed in for under $2 at home.

 

The OP opinion piece gets a Leela good lord.

Adding cricket flour to food is no different than adding chicken meal. Most would have to be told the bread with it had it after eating. It is already in health food stores. The first US farm for human food crickets opened in 2014. People have been using the farms supplying the bait and pet trade long before that.

The Untold Truth Of Cricket Flour
Six legs tasty: First edible insect farm opens in US | New Scientist

 

Given the source, it's probably worth finding out what's actually happening. The article - which also hilariously quotes from RT - actually contains the term "Liberal World Order". Also, it has been linked to by @asjoseph . So the chances are it's an absolute crock of s---.

 

Carl's got a lot done with its Famous Star burger, but for my money the best thing there is the Santa Fe chicken sandwich. Grilled not fried, and it features a huge slice of actual pepper ironed flat on the grill then laid over the chicken.

That said,

I still think the greatest way to experience a restaurant is on somebody else's expense account.

I recently had the pleasure of positively wrecking an A__z__ employee's corporate card in a little old family owned steakhouse in Cincinnati.

I think I am incredibly fortunate that that sort of thing happens to me at least a few times per year.

 

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published two studies on house crickets (Acheta domesticus) as a Novel food pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2015/2283.


First examined frozen and dried formulations, published 7 July 2021

doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6779


Second examined partially defatted powder, published 23 March 2022

doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2022.7258


They examined a variety of safety issues in depth. They were initiated because two insect-growing companies asked for permission to sell their products in EU for human consumption.


The question of ‘public acceptance’ was apparently not within EFSA’s purview. It is unclear from these reports whether product labeling would be required. I think that is not within EFSA’s purview either.


By the time news of this was processed through RT, Infowars, and our top link here, it became much more lurid and clickable.


==

One’s opinion on this are one’s own, but it might be well to understand the entire topic just a bit. As an example, it is difficult to exclude insects from some food-processing chains. If I recall correctly, cocoa powder sold in USA is regulated to contain not more than 2% insect matter.


2023 Jan 20 issue of Science had two articles on insects as human food and as animal feed. Both by Arnold van Huis who is also the editor of journal ‘Insects as Food and Feed’. I know that some public acceptance studies have been published there.


I see this as a very interesting topic, but less so as a misdirected cudgel to beat ‘liberals’ or whatever.

 

Chitin is sold as a dietary supplement. Insoluble dietary fiber, healthy stuff for human diets. Comes from marine crustaceans, which here means shrimp and little else (I think). Mentioned here because chitin is also insect exoskeleton, same chemistry, and is essentially the only thing in 'oh no' cricket products besides protein.

 

Somewhat on topic, I ate my first Cordyceps fungi at a recent celebration dinner. They parasitize caterpillar larvae in soils and pop up and harvesters find them. do not know if that makes them double icky.

But they are quintessence of Traditional Medicine here, and can sell for more than gold weight to the gullible. I do not feel any more immortal than before dinner but who knows?

Various insects are sold as food here, but I only seem to like the fried and salted ones.

 

Sorry that you get all your food from Europe, not America.

".. lobbied for people to start eating bugs to fight global warming, despite the practice being linked to parasitic infections."

Parasites?

Sushi, anyone? OK, more properly called sashimi outside American mistaken vernacular.

Or pork or beef (undercooked)? Raw fruits and veggies? Unpasteurized milk? Fruit juice? Is Vladimir Putin's RT going to try to scare us out of those too?

 

Here is an actual news piece on the topic, https://www.retaildetail.eu/news/food/europeans-now-also-allowed-to-eat-cricket-powder-and-small-mealworms/
"Back in February last year, the European Union announced that three species of insects would henceforth be allowed for human consumption: the migratory spider cricket, the yellow mealworm and the house cricket. Now the European Commission is adding several more insect products to the authorised list. A further eight applications for insect food are currently under review by the EU."

Businesses wanted to sell these insects as human food, did the required work, and the EU said okay.

Here is the bit that the conspiracy pieces are ignoring, "However, the European Commission insists that ingredients must always be properly declared on packaging labels. Manufacturers must always indicate which type of insect it concerns."

If the readers of those sites read the labels to the food they are eating now, and grew up with, they would be freaking out.

Years ago, maybe a decade, I came across an insect for food site that trying to rebrand locust as land shrimp.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2008/06/pass-the-land-shrimp.html

 

There are parasites in some insect guts that can move to humans, if consumed uncooked. Acanthocephalans in cockroaches for example. Problem there seems to be toddlers putting things in their mouths. As they do.

Cooking (to 60 oC is a reasonable baseline) obviates that problem in general, although there are cysts and bacterial spores needing higher T. Cooking converts a disease you'll now not get to a bit more protein. Fabulous human technology; not recent.

One reason why crickets are popular as animal feeds is that they don't host parasites that are good at transferring. So a cooking step can be skipped. Some flies and beetles are also widely used. This is a big topic, y'all, I just cannot gauge your interests.

 

@Trollbait "rebrand locust as land shrimp"

Oh gosh no. Locusts are straight up herbivores, like micro cows. Shrimp mostly eat somebody else's poop and covert it into deliciousness. Many of our treasured examples 'food chaining' that way live in water. Locusts and shrimp wear similar chitin suits, but there their similarity ends.