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[Farseer]

Could I just draw everyone's attention to the fact the price of rice is probably rising faster than the price of meat.
Couldn't find any direct comparison, but Wikipedia is always good.

There's been a bunch of genetic modification / breeding programs going on in Japan but most of them have been shut down by the Japanese government due to them not really wanting any of Asia to, you know, be able to sustain it's population.

[Croquantes]

160 bucks for a Big Mac by 2020? Where the heck are they pulling these numbers from? Next thing you know, McDonalds'll catch a whiff of that and start calling their foods "gourmet."

I dunno. Hear about the lawsuit in the US against Taco Bell? Apparently, their "taco filling" is less than 40% beef. Totally disgusting. I'd rather eat  bug burger that's filled with 100% insect than a beef burger with hardly any beef. x_x

If the prices of meat don't rise, the only alternative for businesses is to use less meat. Preferably without consumers finding out.

[GTM]

I think it's funny that people will drink rotten grapes and wheat (booze), eat moldy milk (cheese), and munch on the cancerous remains of cannibalistic livestock that spend their whole life wallowing in poo and corpses, but the thought of eating perfectly natural little creatures (that preen themselves obsessively) is "gross."

The same herd behavior that leads people to assume insects are distasteful will have those same people paying big bucks for grasshopper in a posh restaurant someday.

[Willfor]

The only reason I wouldn't eat unprocessed bugs is for the same reason you don't give wild bugs to your pet tarantula/scorpion: pesticides. They might be clean on the outside, but if you're eating them right from the wild they likely have some amount of poison inside of them due to human intervention. We get enough of it from plants already, and I'd rather know my bugs are coming from a place they wouldn't have been exposed to them.

[DJ]

What I don't understand is why the people that find bugs disgusting don't feel the same way about lobster. All them arthropods look the same to me!

But I still don't think bugs can ever replace meat, because steak > lobster and anyone who says otherwise is a filthy Mainer.

[Ancre]

On the topic of hamburgers raising to $160, i think it's also nice to keep in mind that people's income will (normally) rise as well. Just as we could buy things for a penny in 1950 and now they cost a dollar yet are still as affordable as in the fifties, things will go up in price and stay as affordable as well. If hamburgers become less affordable, then it means the United States will be a poorer country.

It's unlikely to work in Europe and possibly the United States. Honestly, what people eat is not only determined by what is good for your body but by a ton of other, sometimes not very relevant, or seemingly irrelevant, factors. Like culture and tradition, what we consider healthy and what we consider not. And I can tell you, I work in the food industry, and having bugs in your food is not healthy

I'd like to try but I'm not sure I'll eat insects on a daily basis. I'd rather go on a vegatarian diet.

Can't really deny any of that. I think a lot of people will change their minds when insects are inexpensive or rich people are eating them, though. And I don't think you realise quite how many bugs you eat per day. :p Like I said, green flies in salad, weevils in bread, various other insect bits in every single food you eat.

I want to find somewhere that sells insects.

Hehe I know we eat a lot of weird stuff in the food, heck I make the pastry french people buy here ! We put living shrooms in food voluntarily !

It's just that there's a difference between eating insect residues in your bread and eating them for real. I don't think it's gonna happen. Rich people already do plenty of weird stuff (you just have to turn the TV on to see how they destroy centuries-old magnificent houses for example) and it's not because something is inexpensive that people will buy it as well.

[Fayrik]

I was going to open with something meaningful, but actually, Ancre has stolen pretty much anything I could want to say.

And, it's also quite true that, if you are going to eat bugs, you may as well mash them into a tasteless paste or something, so that you don't have to actually eat the exoskelleton.

Though, if that's going to happen, I'm hoping Bug-farms start up or something, because I don't care so much about what it is, but more the fact it's actually clean.

[Leafsnail]

Are there any estimates on how efficient (in terms of land use, food use, water use...) bug farming would be?

[Grek]

How would you even cook them? In a pot like shrimp?

If you could make worms and grasshoppers taste as good as shrimp, I'd do it.

E: Pillbugs also sound like a nifty snack. I could totally imagine getting a bag of baked, lightly salted rolly pollys at the store.

[GlyphGryph]

Most people I know, its not really the bug part so much as the eating whole small creatures part. I know a lot of people who find shrimp disgusting (but not lobster) for much the same reason - size!

People used to eat all sorts of small animals whole (those tiny birds, bit sized mammals, frogs etc) and don't anymore because now people find it disgusting.

The only real exception I know of is, surprisingly, "bugs", as I know a number of people who enjoy escargot.

I think it would take time to introduce it and get general acceptance, but with the right backers and a few years of effort it could be done.

[Tellemurius]

jesus this is a reason why my family is starting a farm.