Edible bug businesses at crossroads in Japan

Lobster used to be food you give servants.

As for bugs, like vegetable-based meat substitutes, they need to make em cheaper. You can't expect people to make a big effort to eat a substitute that costs more than the thing it is replacing. Especially when there is no taste advantage.

Brainwashed to eat insects?

I heard the elites created a special breed of insect which makes people drive EVs while wearing masks and listen to woke/elitist commentators pushing climate change and the virtues of the Davos types.

Or something like that.

crunch time...... for the edible bug business?

Businesses in the industry have taken a hit especially on social media where their products are sometimes singled out for abuse, and misinformation and false claims spread.

When you think about it a cricket or beetle is just land shrimp.

When you think about it a cricket or beetle is just land shrimp.

That’s what the elites are telling you.

They have infiltrated the sciences and are pushing ideas like this.

The private jet flying elite are not going to be eating insects.

Maybe they don’t like them. You ate insects and said you don’t like them.

If you liked them, would you eat them?

The private jet flying elite are not going to be eating insects.

The rich never used to eat oysters or fish eggs, considered poor people's food.

@wallace

Show me a picture of a G7 meeting or Charles Schwab at dinner where insects are on the table and I’ll believe it’s going to be a thing

Well.. Absolutely NO thanks..

Whole Insect eating with the creature intact will never be more than a curiousity.

But insects as a highly nutritious powdered food source - esp protein - will probably become more common.

Used as an additive to fortify foods like the examples in the article seems extremely likely.

While the producers in hte article are having a tough time economically - the realities of producing high quality protein via the insect method vs the abnormally wasteful destructive animal farming method is not even on the same page.

Re the "ick" factor - well that's non-issue imo.

People eat cute little (and big) animals everyday and don't blink an eyelid.

They can ooohh and aahhh over little lambs/sheep, calves/cows, chickens etc and never give a thought that the dish they are munching on is "one of them".

If people can dis-associate themselves from the images of eating cutesy mammals, should be able to do the same for a protein flour.

Japan has a long history of eating bugs especially when most of this country was poor. It was a source of much needed protein at times.

In Shikoku, I've eaten baby and adult bees, grasshoppers and crickets. The old timers reminisced about eating baby bees w/ butter and salt in their youth. They said it made men more verile and it worked like Viagra.

Although, I understand the revulsion of some of the Japanese parents above about their kids eating crickets, but they should also know that they're just two or three generations removed from when it was more commonplace. OG Japanese culture.

In Nagano, we ate several bugs regularly. Tried some in Thailand. Nothing to write home about but nothing disgusting about them too. Just another very crisp morsel. Goes well with a beer.

What bugs me is people really think bugs are tasty. The two words don't even go together unless you're starving to death. Edible. Bugs. Pass.

bass4funkToday 10:24 am JST

Well, the incompetent elites can have all the bugs and EVs they want, I’ll continue to eat steak and drive fossil-fuel truck.

I'm with you there.

I'll wait till after WWIII to make bugs my main nutrient source.

SpeedToday  11:52 am JST

Japan has a long history of eating bugs especially when most of this country was poor. It was a source of much needed protein at times.

Not Japan. Certain parts of Japan. Most Japanese have never eaten insects. Lke most Americans have never eaten bull's testicles.

Same with other Asian nations, Insects are siold at marktes in parts of China, Vietnam, eyc but not univerally eaten throughout those countries.

bass4funkToday 10:24 am JST

Well, the incompetent elites can have all the bugs and EVs they want, I’ll continue to eat steak and drive fossil-fuel truck.

As long as you are paying more via taxes for putting up solar panels than anybody else, I'm fine with that.

Insects are peasant food. That's what the elite want for you

Peasant? Sounds very elitist.

Having tried various insects, I can subjectively say…no thanks!

LDP government's food policy is absurd.

They demand dairy farmers to dump immense milk and to "reduce" livestocks, on the other hand, they urge eating insect as "new protein sources" to general public.

SpeedToday  11:52 am JST

Japan has a long history of eating bugs especially when most of this country was poor. It was a source of much needed protein at times.

Not Japan. Certain parts of Japan. Most Japanese have never eaten insects. Lke most Americans have never eaten bull's testicles.

Same with other Asian nations, Insects are siold at marktes in parts of China, Vietnam, eyc but not univerally eaten throughout those countries.

Well, the incompetent elites can have all the bugs and EVs they want, I’ll continue to eat steak and drive fossil-fuel truck.

Human consumption of crickets, which are rich in nutrients

and also rich in stuff we shouldn't be eating, like chitin.

Insects are peasant food. That's what the elite want for you.

It's great having Billionaires telling us to eat bugs, when they're still flying jets and eating as they desire.

Brainwashed to eat insects?

Don’t let the Chitan give you indigestion

Or a sore posterior…

The private jet flying elite are not going to be eating insects.

They’ll tell us to but you can be sure that they won’t be…

Food crisis?

What food crisis?

I have meat on my table everyday.

No need for bird food at all