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

The people that love eating shrimp, but grossed out by insects processed into a flour, wouldn't care for the nuance.

 

A rational fact-based person would select food sources based on protein and other nutrient supplies based on safety (first!) and environmental footprints/externalities next. That is rational, as person is among 8 billions and all are in the same boat. Here on Earth I mean.

I am not that rational person. I favorably respond to a well-prepared piece of cow muscle, even while knowing about too much methane made and too much water used. I negatively respond to some food 'textures', even if they are food-chain efficient.

I suppose that others are even less rational and their brains are available for programming that some Liberal New World Order intends to accomplish ... something bad. But the real bad lies elsewhere.

==
We 8 billions are in a tricky situation. Feeding all in the most pleasant 20th century way appears incompatible with resources available and externalities no longer ignorable. Some changes need to be made. Many new ways to manage human-nutrition supply are being examined, and insects in the food chain are among those. I cannot predict how it might go, but even in this thread I see how it sadly could be sent wrong.

 

we try to buy local, but only so much can be had, and it's seasonal

 

I admit, I have not tried to buy any insect proteins or contents apart from whatever was organically included in other foods (aforementioned red dyes and cocoa stocks) but I would not reject cricket flour as a food source. I'm not ready for any whole-bug dishes, but processed into something else I can use? okay, I'll have a go.

I love cooking and eating all kinds of things. We tend to favor fish & eggs, but we don't hold back with the beef, pork, lamb, or vegetable dishes either.

I have just recently unlocked deity-level ma po tofu with a recipe my sister-in-law brought back from Chengdu. My Sichuan peppercorns have gone stale though, not much numbing power left to them.

 

"I love cooking and eating all kinds of things". No, my friend, you do not. You have never refused a bowl of shark-fin soup for knowing its antecedents. Refusing such does nothing to save those sharks already killed, but it is something that one must do.

We hold the line as we imagine it ought to be.

On ma po tofu, @hkmb will resound that when next he visits us. I like it also and may be only one here who can walk 500 meters to get a bowl of 'deity' for USD$1. It's a thing, ya sure, but other things loom larger.

 

You are correct in that shark fin soup has never been offered, rejected nor selected. And from what I've read, it just won't be. Are you making a point on semantics that I can't enjoy all kinds of things because at least one is (appropriately) restricted?

And you've got me beat hard on the ma po cost. But that I can produce it at all in Pennsylvania dutch country moves me...

 

If crustaceans are OK to eat, insects are not much different, IMHO. High protein low fat... even better than shrimp and lobster. I've had a few insect dishes in the past but can't say they are my favorite food though.
Entomophagy in humans - Wikipedia

 

Living in the Gulf South, I'm defacto "Louisiana Adjacent"...because LA casts a LOOOOOONG shadow and cajuns are rather prolific breeders, which is sorta the point of being cajun.
Cajuns are not the ORIGINAL mutts of the new world, but they're talented in the trade.

So....


Bugs (mud or otherwise) are not much of a deal breaker hereabouts, for dietary needs.

It's NOT the food you eat.
It's WHAT your food EATS.....

Pro tips:
They're CRWAFISH.
NOT "craw-dads" or "cray-fish."
Use either of those words and you will stick out like Algore at a monster truck rally.
If you (like me) are disadvantaged in being born north of the Mason-Dixon line, do not try to "fit in" at the local crawfish boil by eating the stuff without legs.
Cajuns don't boil their bottom feeders with sissified stuff like 'Old Bay Seasoning'....mostly because it doesn't.
They use the real deal, and let's just say that some things in the pot are much more effective at absorbing spices than freshwater crustaceans.
...and don't bother reaching for that bottle of Dixie Beer, because even Yankees know that that will only make things worse....and the nearest custard bowl of ranch dressing will be in Kentucky, Missouri....or some other 'border state.'

Secondly, do not eat anything with legs and torso that are not curled up.....sorta like it was alive and didn't want to get thrown into the pot.


IYKYK.....

 

The CNY holiday is over, so now I am back to coming on here to procrastinate when I should be working.

God, I love ma po tofu. I think it wold be my death-row final meal.

My first experience of it was in Chengdu, in 1992. at Chen Ma Po Doufu Fandian, the restaurant that claims to have invented it, and which has been selling it - currently at not much more than US$1 - for more than 100 years.

One of the excellent side-effects of the huge number of Chinese students coming to study at Sydney's universities has been that we now have really excellent Sichuan (and Hunan, and Shanghai, and North-East, and Xinjiang, and Lanzhou, and other) restaurants to complement the old-school Cantonese and anglicised-cantonese places. So I can now get a decent ma po tofu here. This is a good thing.

 

I have had it. I'm not a fan.

I have to admit that too many zombie books and films - especially The Girl With All The Gifts - have made me irrationally wary of codyceps.

 

@Leadfoot J. McCoalroller , eat! Let your range have nothing to do with my words. I have limits and barriers. More of those relate to texture than wrongful foodicide, or for going too high on marine mercury bioconcentration.

All have food refusals; for some Brussels sprouts, for others anything close to eating animal or products therefrom. Do what you do. In a decade or so, it will be much louder to avoid The Cow. While very tasty, it is a sustainability train wreck. As such it will become all the more coveted. I'm happy that shark fin soup seems not spun as sticking it to the Libs. De-finned sharks die badly.

==
Realistically supplying protein to 10 billion humans will require some ... adjustments. We'll just have to see how that plays out, globally and locally.

 

Your a rational person yeah sure you are and you voted for trump a complete lunatic.

Fox News has trained you well….no matter what the discussion is about bring up the liberals as the cause of all problems. Your not aware how stupid that makes you sound. Just just another miserable angry old dude who can’t wait for a bow tie wearing jackass to explain how it’s the liberals fault but not yours your a rootin tootin gun wearing pro life anti vax anti mask US government over throwing patriot!

And please professor explain to us mere mortals the difficulties of the modern food chain and then don’t mention the main reason for that is global warming something your party and I’m sure yourself even refuses to accept. It doesn’t exist right? The most serious world problem. But that’s the liberals fault too I assume.

Jewish space lasers damn right but not that there global warming! That’s a liberal hoax fake news Tucker told me.

So yeah explain to us how the world works professor.

 

That I can see. I keep reading on the topic of aquaculture with an eye towards a barramundi farm in a barn. I could see running a cricket operation for its feedstock.

 

^ methinks you may have tagged that to the wrong member.
@tochatihu is 'slightly' off to my left, and he has selective indignity at times but he's a mostly honest broker and my thinking is that most 'misinformation' that he is allegedly being influenced by is probably being actively blocked by the CCP (ChiComms) in his localle.
@tochatihu is about as deeply influenced by MAGA as MSM is by 'lab leak theories.'

I think that the Earth will be orbiting a cold, dead star before either one of us, EVER pulls the lever for 'Big Orange'....albeit probably for 'slightly' different reasons.

THAT having been said I would humbly submit that:

1. NO shark 'dies badly.'
As a sailor, I admit to possessing no small bias in this sentiment.
I'm reminded of a famous urban legend about PITA representatives at a 'Texas Rattlesnake Roundup' who insisted upon being present to ensure that the captured reptiles were "killed correctly."
This, of course, led the locals to wonder how one kills a rattlesnake "incorrectly." (*)

B. When it comes to ecologic calamity, NOBODY takes a second chair to the Chi-COMMS!!!
Most particularly in protein harvesting!!!!!!!

This is YET another example that there is a 'yuge' difference between being educated and being wise.
Commercial fishing is, literally, raping ocean while opponents of 'big beef' point to grain distribution
and bovine gastric gas emissions to account for their presumptions for the anthropogenic component of "climate change.'
For style points CCP funded eco-warriors also tend to 'look away' from swine.

See Also:
Dupes.
Hypocrisy.
Machiavellianism.

(*) Despite Genesis 3:1-24 I am not particularly at enmity with serpents.
They know their place in the food chain, they devour rodents and other pests, and they do what they can to avoid confrontation with Bipeds.
I do not think that this places me at odds with devotees of The Book but rather it affirms the role of serpents in our lives.
Manage them correctly and respect their nature, and we live longer and more fulfilled lives.
The ladies in my orbital plane do NOT SHARE in this sentiment.

Sharks OTOH are little more than highly evolved engines of ingestion, and like polar bears, they know no fear from predation. Polar bears regard intruders into their domain as being either an implement for amusement or as a source of calories.
Sharks have no regard for bi-peds or any other intruders.....(who should of NOT venture into their realm in the first place!!)
I acknowledge that sharks play a role in the intricate tapestry that is our biosphere but I also acknowledge my hypocrisy in not weeping over their demise, finless or otherwise.

Besides, if we continue to allow the Chicomms (and others) to rape the oceans of the world then the 'shark problem' will be a self-licking lollipop.
Decline in fish stocks.....
Decline in sharks.

#grassfedbeef.

 

@ETC(SS) and I will simply have to disagree about sharks. Can't tell if we agree about fin soup.

 

Within Greater China - which is of course the main shark-fin market - I think Yao Ming deserves a lot of credit for depopularising it. He did loads of work on this a few years back. I am not a basketball fan, but I respect him for using his celebrity for something so worthwhile.

 

I don't know how much soup consumption decreased after Yao Ming's work, but I appreciate the effort.
Also I'm not convinced I should get het up about selective indignity. Not long before, we got a close look at non-selective indignity here. Hooo boy.

 

I think the soup is very much an old-person thing now. And perhaps a small-city and countryside thing. Younger people in the more-developed cities just aren't interested, and I think that's where he may have made a difference.

Oooh, it sounds like I missed something fun while I was travelling.

 

PRC indeed has the world's largest ocean fishing fleet by any measure. Japan is a distant second.


Fishing fleet