Today I learned...

[Farawyn]

Far... Stop Just STOP.

Nope.

 

[MyNameIsNO]

How about we don't fight and cause me more stress because you both love me and I'm about to crack as it is?
I'd really appreciate it

 

[Primalex]

cost less to maintain

I doubt this.

An ant eats around 20-30% of its weight per day.
A cow around 2% (~28 pounds for a 1200 pound cow) per day and you get around 500 pounds of meat. So your 500 pounds ant farm would need ~100 pounds of food per day.

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

Child of the future:
"can you believe that people used to eat cows! they slaughtered billions of cows a year!"

Cow of the future:
"Barbarians!"

A few cows will be part of the Enterprise crew in the next reboot. Envision it.

I don't eat a lot of insects but I read something last year about bugs as a great protein source for much of the world, and how someone was marketing flavored bug snacks to the West. One issue I have is that they'll fall through the grates of the grill.

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

kabobs are a very common way of preparing insects in general, but not all of them would fall through the grill.

You're smart. My tiny insect brain didn't conceive of this.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

back to primalex's point.

Your math seems sound but Con is just parroting scientists and engineers who are already doing it.

There could be a point made about the expense of the types of food in question, with cows being fed irrigated crops, while some types of flies proposed for human consumption could be fed on compost. (not human waste yet.... *gag*)

I don't think anyone is proposing to eat ants specifically.. there's all sorts of problems there. If we were to turn to ants for food, we would almost certainly be harvesting the larvae, because as I already pointed out; shorter lifespan, but I suspect for most breeds of ants there would be a serious concern about containment.

Yes, the shorter lifespan becomes the issue. 500 pounds of any insect might need 100 pounds of food a day, but the cow has to be fed for a lot longer time period before you can butcher him (as I believe you already made that point).

Also, I saw something recently that talked about insects being ground up into a powder/flour, from which you could make bread, chips, burgers? a lot of different things that would be way more palatable to folks than popping a whole cricket into their mouths.
Because, yuck. Cricket breath

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

intelligence is not requisite for the vast storage of useless trivia. If I could put it to any use that would be another story.

uh... I mean... thanks for the compliment?

Never underestimate trivia!

Now that I think of it, shrimp are grilled on skewers and they're basically water insects.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Never underestimate trivia!

Now that I think of it, shrimp are grilled on skewers and they're basically water insects.

Yes! Shrimp and lobsters and crayfish...
I might need to revisit the oog thread

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

uh... noooo.... they aren't... if you'll forgive the nitpicking

Insects are a type of arthropod, as are arachnids and crustaceans (including shrimp)

so... how do I equivocate that statement....

Its a bit like comparing cows to fish, because they are both vertebrates.

Which I imagine is exactly how aliens might lump sum life on earth.

"Fricking bonies."

Sure they are! In this biology book I am holding it says it's because "they are smallish, a little gross and squiggly."

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

LOL

I suppose that is kinda how the origins of categorization boil down

Wanna get something to eat? Red Locust brought back their Endless Earwig menu for 2016!

 

[Tallcajun]

Wanna get something to eat? Red Locust brought back their Endless Earwig menu for 2016!

Lmao...

We laugh now, but who knows?

 

[Primalex]

I don't think anyone is proposing to eat ants specifically.. there's all sorts of problems there. If we were to turn to ants for food, we would almost certainly be harvesting the larvae, because as I already pointed out; shorter lifespan = less feed overall, but I suspect for most breeds of ants there would be a serious concern about containment.

Insects will always be a bad choice because they are just not designed to conserve energy. The wasted energy cannot be turned into body mass. The only reason calves are not butchered right after birth is because it's more efficient to feed them to make them grow. And no, your larvae does not come out of thin air either. There is a reason flies lie their eggs onto meat.

Anyway, the future will be mushrooms. The mushroom proteins are already made to create vegetarian meat very successfully. They don't use photosynthesis, so they don't require rare farmland nor artificial lighting. And they are efficient. You can turn 100 pounds of straw into 200 pounds of mushroom. You can convert what we would consider waste into mushroom - corncobs, nut hulls, coffee grounds, manure, sawdust, ...

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

uh... noooo.... they aren't... if you'll forgive the nitpicking

Insects are a type of arthropod, as are arachnids and crustaceans (including shrimp)

so... how do I equivocate that statement....

Its a bit like comparing cows to fish, because they are both vertebrates.

Which I imagine is exactly how aliens might lump sum life on earth.

"Fricking bonies."

Except there's no such thing as a fish

 

[MyNameIsNO]

OH
This morning I learned Great Britain has a different daylight savings date than the US.

Right now I'm learning that a busy loud restaurant and a root beer float made with hard root beer is better than being someplace you don't want to be, even though you're doing schoolwork.

 

[Cakecups]

TIL having a farawyn inspired avi significantly increases the amount of suggestive PMs

 

[Blue]

Except there's no such thing as a fish

Fun fact:
Mushrooms are more closely related to humans than plants.

 

[Farawyn]

TIL having a farawyn inspired avi significantly increases the amount of suggestive PMs

Yea, I'll be taking that back on Tuesday.

I'd rather hear about potassium than my cookie and my kitty.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Fun fact:
Mushrooms are more closely related to humans than plants.

Oooohhhh...
*takes notes*
All my friends will have heard this by next Friday.
At least once

I'm pretty sure that the flies most commonly proposed for dietary consumption are fruit flies (?) but in any case, no one was saying anything comes out of thin air. The questions are what exactly are you feeding the animal, how long must you feed the animal before harvest, & how much does it cost to produce that feed? Can the feed be produced locally, can the animal eat what we consider to be waste products (like your point about mushrooms)?

You have a very good point in that insects are hugely wasteful of energy, but this is primarily true of their adult forms, which is just another strong argument for consumption of larvae, in spite of the lower protein content per pound.



much as I dislike mushrooms, that's a relief. I doubt mushroom farming resolves the question of the dietary need for some high protein components however. Half of the issue is resolved just by moving away from the american obsession with over consumption of protein though.

arcology/ generation ship/ planetary colony/ fallout bunker food will likely prove out to best be served in a mix of both mushrooms and insects.

So all you would need for self perpetuating food would be larvae that feed on mushrooms. Plant the mushrooms, harvest some, leave some. Larvae feed on the mushrooms. Harvest the larvae, let some mature. Boom! Enough food to keep the cat alive at least

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

was gonna come back and add "and probably potatoes, if Andy Weir is to be believed at all...



what!? no...

'perpetuating' food is going to be a lot more complex, and would necessarily include all waste from the organisms being supported. To get an apparently perpetual food source, you basically need a "miniature" ecosystem of such size that your own footprint barely makes an impact, and then supplement it to offset your footprint.

the 200 lbs of mushrooms from 100lbs of straw is also drawing mass from ground nutrients and rain or ground ater, and in a closed system that has to be accounted for too.

In fact that's part of the big problem with the bamboo fad. Bamboo grows fast, so it's a "more sustainable" form of lumber & food... right? Turns out we couldn't have possibly been more wrong. Frequent harvesting of bamboo rapidly strips the ground soil of nutrients until nothing will ever grow there again.

vertical farming in hydroponic trays using a solution for optimized nutrient absorption is probably going to be the best we can do for a very long time, but when the nutrient solution runs out; if you haven't figured out some way to make more, you're done growing.

I see.
Perhaps we will just mutate into frogs problem solved!

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

ROFL

I needed that

First one's free!

 

[_Necrosomantic_]

TIL that I will be moving in December, not sure where yet, but that is future Necro's problem. I'll worry about it after tomorrow

 

[DiscusDave]

TIL That after a certain level of frustration, I get a huge furrow in my forehead and the frustration turns to just pure exhaustion.

 

[NoeMasks]

TIL, just because you like someone does not, make them good people.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Cumference]

wow!
Two pages of entomophagy.

I really opened a can of worms.