Does anyone here raise bugs for food?

I am interested to find out who here raises bugs for their protein source. After some research, bugs produce very minimal waste compared to farm animals. To those that have bug farms at home, what kind of set-up do you have and how many bugs/larvea does it yield per week?

As someone who lifts weights 4-5 times a week, I'm always trying to find the cheapest form of protein for my muhscules.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2017 07:03PM by DavePi.

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Seriously where do you get this inane @#$%& from?

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

To answer your question bgriffin, right now the cheapest form of protein for me is beans. A good place to get beans is the dollar store. One bag of pinto beans is around 133 grams of protein. However my main sources of protein is ground turkey and egg whites from Aldi. By using the 5th law of thermodynamics, it is safe to assume that any protein from bugs will ultimately lead to a rise of the x coefficient in my hemoglobin level and thus I will become a bug myself. We are what we eat after all.

OMG! You are quite interesting DavePi! What about ants? I had an ant farm many years ago! How about a cockroach smoothie? It seems to me cockroaches would be the easiest to get! Just don't clean your kitchen.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2017 08:49PM by shopper8.

I knew it before I opened it. LOL Dave.

shopper8. I would not get any ol' cockroach from the kitchen because that could lead to some sanitation issues. I would first find the cockroach's nest, grab their eggs and put them into a plastic tub so they can grow in a pathogen free environment. That's of course if I'm interested in eating cockroaches, which I'm not(unless someone has experience to convince me otherwise). I'm more interested in beetle larvae or grasshopper that have a more neutral taste and would combine well with most sauces.

DavePi, I have learned to never be amazed at the topics you start!! Perhaps you indeed found a marijuana shop somewhere and have been contemplating this "bugs for food" idea while noshing on some "brownies" or something...haha!!
Seriously, a few years ago, on Shark Tank, there was an episode where someone wanted funding to help their business, which was.....DRUM ROLL ~~~~~~~~~BUGS AS FOOD!!! Google it...maybe, if the company is still in business, you can send off for something to eat....I think they were working on protein bars at the time.

Best to be fussy about your Roaches.....wouldn't want to get a bad one...how would you know?

Live consciously....

DavePi, why not check out the companies that raise bugs for agricultural use? (Usually, their products are designed to work in various environments as an alternative to pesticides.) You might find out if their existing products are fit for human consumption. If they do not have directly useful products, they might at least know where you can get information for producing a sufficient quantity of bugs that you can consume safely.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. - Lao-Tzu

Just an interesting tidbit I came across while doing some research. The FDA has guidelines on the number of bug fragments, strictly for "aesthetic" purposes, that are allowed in marketed foods. For example, peanut butter is allowed up to 30 bug fragments per 100g. Wheat flour is allowed up to 150 bug fragments per 100g.

[www.fda.gov]

Yes, that's old news about the bug fragments in your food. It's way better than it used to be, though. Heck, I remember being a kid and getting out the cereal box and finding live bugs in it (weevils). If you didn't eat your cereal quick enough back in the day, the eggs would hatch and you would have some lovely squirmy things floating in your bowl (which I promptly dumped and I threw out the rest of the box). They also allow a certain amount of pus from infected udders into milk (something I quit drinking years ago for other reasons).

I saw that Shark Tank episode. It was interesting.

My husband ate fried grasshoppers (or maybe they were crickets, can't remember) on one of our trips to Mexico. He was drunk. I have a cute pic of him with chewed up crickets on his tongue...eww.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

My husband ate fried grasshoppers (or maybe they were crickets, can't remember) on one of our trips to Mexico. He was drunk. I have a cute pic of him with chewed up crickets on his tongue...eww.

Many years ago, we had a missionary from Brazil come to our church and talk about the area. He brought along some of that area's "treats" that the kids love there.....chocolate covered grasshoppers!! He offered some to anyone who wanted to try one......I passed!

Chocolate covered bees were popular for awhile.

Termites are supposedly tasty and nutritious. Anyone else having deju vu?

It's become a game for me to see if I can recognize a DavePi thread just by the title. Dave, please don't stop liking your own posts! That's a fun trait.

@ChrisCooper wrote:

It's become a game for me to see if I can recognize a DavePi thread just by the title.

Me too!! And I just found another one....soon as I read the title, before looking over to the right side of the screen, I thought.....hmmmm.....sounds like something DavePi would write about....and I was right!! ha ha!!

Mealworms are supposed to be cost-effective to raise. You stop feeding them a day or two before you plan to prepare them, so that their 'insides' are clean. If I were to consider raising bugs to eat, this might be the only one, they aren't noisy, unlikely to escape, etc. Ground up and baked in something, who would know.

I am most likely however, to continue enjoying my lentils and such.

If only we could control shrimps' diets so that they wouldn't have the black and brown "guts" that require "deveining" them before eating them. You know, basically they are just swimming/floating bugs, cousins of crawfish which are called "mudbugs" in the south. Another excellent source of protein, just a tad more expensive than the ones that Dave is talking about.

Dave, what about tarantulas? I hear that they are quite tasty when fried, even though spiders are not bugs.

Our local science museum serves grasshopper cookies in their cafeteria.

"Let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why?” ~Walter Williams

Chocolate covered grasshoppers ued to be a delicacy, but then again, anything covered in chocolate can't be all bad....still, I will pass...more for you Dave.

Live consciously....

The only grasshopper I ever consumed was an alcoholic beverage served chilled or over ice and there were no bugs in it.

Gotta love DavePi!

@bgriffin wrote:

Seriously where do you get this inane @#$%& from?

"I told myself to quit you; but I don't listen to drunks." -Chris Stapleton

DavePi, how is the Breakfast Wine?

"I told myself to quit you; but I don't listen to drunks." -Chris Stapleton

I think he abandoned that project or drank it all...we sure don't hear about it.

@HonnyBrown wrote:

Gotta love DavePi!

@bgriffin wrote:

Seriously where do you get this inane @#$%& from?

No you don't

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

I've been eating very clean for a while now and whenever I drink alcohol, it seems to make me really buzzed, even a small amount. I'm 23 right now and I can't hold down my liquor like back in the day. Right now I drink a beer once a month or 2. In regards to the breakfast wine, I still have some, but only for very special occasions when I want to be fancy.

I'm 23 right now and I can't hold down my liquor like back in the day.

@DavePi wrote:

I've been eating very clean for a while now and whenever I drink alcohol, it seems to make me really buzzed, even a small amount.Right now I drink a beer once a month or 2. In regards to the breakfast wine, I still have some, but only for very special occasions when I want to be fancy.

I think that the breakfast wine is doing something to you. When I think of back in the day, I am thinking of a time that is more than 23 years ago!

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. - Lao-Tzu

I am from Asian decent so alcohol affects us differently than the rest of you guys. There is a gene in Asians that makes it harder for us to digest alcohol.

Good thinking Shop, I'm going to send my breakfast wine to a research laboratory to see if its having any adverse effects on my health. As the old saying goes, "better safe than sorry".

My doc said it's an enzyme. It's why my German and Russian friends will consistently drink anyone under the table, and why my American Indian and Mexican friends get drunk so quickly. It's genetic. Same reason why a 150-lb woman gets drunk faster than a 150-lb man.

Get your cricket protein bars here.

[www.amazon.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2017 11:35PM by prince.

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