Betterige of the Day

Would you eat insects to save the planet from global warming?

Well, no, obviously.

The thought of rising sea levels and more intense heatwaves are enough to keep you up at night.

Ah, right, can I stop you right there, you seem to be labouring under a particular misapprehension here. I’m sleeping just fine, thanks. As for Climate change (I thought global warming was passé these days), well, the climate changes. It has been changing since, well, since the Earth cooled and formed into a planet. We are still coming out of an ice age. Of course the climate will change. Only a fool would expect it to remain as it was one summer’s day in the nineteen fifties. It’s a dynamic system. As system so huge and so dynamic, we are incapable of fully understanding it yet, let alone deciding that the science is settled. Only a fool with planet sized hubris says that.

There isn’t much time left to figure out how to bring global warming closer to the forefront of people’s minds and persuade us to reduce our carbon footprints

Fuck carbon footprints. Patterns suggest that warming precedes increases in atmospheric CO2.

In fact, we have just 12 years left to keep global warming to 1.5C, according to last week’s landmark UN report.

Ah, yes, the old “we have fifteen minutes to save the Earth, Flash!” Bullshit these doomsday merchants have been peddling since they were trying to convince us we were entering a new ice age back in the seventies. Not one of their wild predictions has come true. They have much in common with the religious doomsday cults who keep predicting the end of days and then coming up with a new date when the old one has passed.

Reducing our meat intake is crucial to avoiding climate breakdown, since food production accounts for about a quarter of all human-related greenhouse gas emissions, and is predicted to rise. In western countries, this means eating 90% less beef and five times as many beans and pulses.

Yeah, here we go… The old return to an agrarian shit-based diet shtick. Always with these obsessives it’s the give up civilisation and go back to living in hovels scraping an existence from the dirt. I am not eating five times more beans and pulses. Ain’t happening. I’ll eat whatever I want to eat and the Grauinad and its miserablists can go fuck themselves with that pineapple wrapped in razor wire I’ve put by especially for them. We are fortunate in that we live in a technological age that makes life easier and yet we have these people who would happily drag us back to the dark ages. If they want to engage in hair shirts and self-flagellation, then fine. I’m not going to stop them, but I’m not joining them either.

Edible insects have been hailed as a solution to both global food shortages and reducing emissions from animal agriculture, but despite the industry’s best efforts, our response when faced with a cockroach is disgust.

You do surprise me.

Even in London edible insects are seen as nothing more than a gimmick, and there are only a handful of restaurants serving them up.

I doubt it’s a viable business model – that old disgust at the thought of eating a cockroach being such a big thing an’ all. No. No way. I am not giving up beef for cockroach.

But new research from Switzerland and Germany may have found out how to persuade people to eat insects – and it could have a huge impact on lowering human-led carbon emissions.

Because “No, I find that disgusting” isn’t an option, is it? I don’t need persuading. I’m not eating insects. That’s it.

Up until now, retailers and restaurants have marketed edible insects as a more sustainable option and a healthy source of protein. But the researchers explain the problem with getting people to switch to environmentally friendly behaviour is that it often requires foregoing immediate pleasure for distant benefits, and edible insects have been wrongly framed in this way.

So basically, it’s disgusting but it’s for your own good. Yeah, my mother tried that one with sprouts. As an adult, I don’t eat sprouts, so that worked out well. I’m not sure they have been framed wrongly. If insects were the best thing since sliced bread, they would have taken off by now – the winged ones, anyway.

Before the 180 participants in the study were offered a chocolate truffle filled with mealworms, half of the group were given a flyer saying that eating insects was good for them and the environment, while the other half were told the insects were either delicious or trendy to eat.

Right. So it’s trendy and people will do it. It might be trendy in Islington, but I doubt it’ll be deemed as trendy elsewhere. Besides if something is trendy, then it’s a turn-off for me. Why would I want to be trendy? I eat what I want to eat and I don’t want to eat insects even if they are hidden in a chocolate truffle. I’m not keen on chocolate truffles either.

The researchers concluded that we need to switch the message about saving the planet from altruism to pleasure. They back up their argument with previous studies showing that attitudes based on emotions are more malleable than those grounded in rational claims.

Right. The usual propaganda then. Advertising slogans. Well, that’s going to work well with me as I isolate myself remarkably well from advertising. And I suspect that apart from the vacuous trendy types in London, the rest of the country will continue to eschew an insect based diet because they will find it disgusting, despite the propaganda campaign.

He calls this the “sushification” of the mealworm, since raw fish was until 20 years ago also seen by westerners as disgusting to eat.

I still do. Nothing will persuade me to eat raw fish. My fish comes deep-fried in batter with chips. I am not eating insects.

Veganism, until recently, was viewed as a quirky lifestyle choice or protest, but about 3.5 million people in the UK alone now eat a vegan diet.

Fine. Let ’em. Their choice. Not mine.

There are several arguments for swapping meat for plants: health and environmental benefits, and it tastes better.

That’s subjective.

But the less said about how our eating habits could potentially save the planet, perhaps the closer we’ll come to actually achieving it.

How about just fucking off and leaving us alone instead of either bludgeoning us with your scaremongering or trying to manipulate us when that doesn’t work?

29 Comments

  1. Some people actually would eat insects. But I don’t care about global warming. I think it’s a pile of tosh. I’m not absolutely certain why it’s a pile of tosh, but it is. The world looks alright to me, the world keeps on turning, and I’m still here. So bullshit to that one.

    If I want it and I can afford it, I’ll eat it. Simple as that.

    • The planet goes in cycles. There have been times when CO2 has been much higher and the temperature both higher and lower. In the Permian period there was a major extinction event due to climate change. As I said, we are still coming out of an ice age, which in geological terms is pretty recent.

    • There are good reasons to believe that it is a load of tosh Paul. The latest cry wolf missive from the IPCC contains this gem.

      “more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice”

      Even the IPCC’s own reports say that non of this is true. There has been no increase in extreme weather events. The sea levels have been rising at the same very slow gradual rate for centuries. There has been some reduction in Arctic sea ice but it bottomed out in about 2012 and has been increasing slightly since then.

  2. And no, I’ll not eat insects. I’ll have burger and chips with a pint of crisp golden ale please. After that, I’ll have another four pints and go home.

  3. Even in London edible insects are seen as nothing more than a gimmick, and there are only a handful of restaurants serving them up.

    So, the Tower Hamlets food inspectors don’t have the bottle to inspect the local ‘vibrant’ take away outlets? Is that it?

    • …and Islington. God only knows what Corbyn, Abbot & Lady Nugee are feeding “the poor”. Maybe maggot infested Thornberrys which stick in throat.

  4. First they came for my cigarettes, next they came for my beer, my coke, then they demanded my burger….and fries.
    I saw our tescos was trying to flog beetroot ‘burgers’, i think i vomited a little in the back of my mouth.

  5. If as the writer of this ridiculous piece asserts that vegetables taste better then why has it always been a problem for parents to get their kids to “eat their greens”? I only know of a very few people that have had the same problem about getting their kids to eat meat. The vast majority, like me, avoided veg as most of it tastes just like the dirt it grew out of. I do eat various veggies now but only the ones I can just about stomach as I understand that a reasonably balanced diet is better for me. Especially as I’m getting on a bit now. Not sprouts though or parsnips. Those things being cooked in the same building as me is enough to make me nauseous.

    If someone ever approached me with an insect while I was dining they would be lucky to not have to pull my fork from their eyeball. The same would be applied to anyone in my vicinity eating such muck.

  6. try flipping this around …

    Just think of the destruction of genetic diversity in insects caused by selfish humans eating hundreds of them at one meal. We are worried about the way that this is causing the insects to be killed before they can pass on their genes and this may/could/perhaps cause a massive decline in insects due to a catastrophic collapse due to a monogenetic population.

    If only people ate cows where one cow yields enough portions of protein to feed potentially hundreds of humans …

    How does THAT grab you, eh?

  7. I’ll give up eating meat when those lovable fluffy Polar Bears do, that all the wildlife fanatics keep banging on about. But I’m buggered if I’m going to eat insects.
    Besides, these nutters do realise that they are dooming Cows, Pigs and Sheep etc to extinction, don’t they? I mean who is going to pay to keep a field full of fluffy BaBas in clover if you cant eat them or wear them?

  8. I’ll eat what they eat at these climate conferences.
    These people know what is good for the planet.
    And I will fly anywhere to do it.
    All I have to do is fine some mugs/concerned governments to pay for it all.

  9. Much as I agree with the rest of the correspondents here, I do think these people have managed to hit on one reasonable point: people will start to eat insect protein when they think they will enjoy it.

    Cockroach protein tastes like finest Steak Wellington with a black truffle glaze? Gimme gimme gimme!

    Cockroach tastes like something you’d find under a fridge that hasn’t been defrosted in a while? I think I’ll pass, thank you…

    • Good point.

      We need to get the genetic modification people working on this. Make cockroaches that taste of bacon, beef, chocolate, cheese, Christmas puddings. Then I’ll eat them happily.

      Of course that will upset the anti-GM lobby, but needs must… 🙂

  10. By the way, ‘n’ that, Buffalo Bill was an eco-saint.
    A!most cleared the prairies of methane generators.

  11. @LR

    +1

    …The researchers concluded that we need to switch the message about saving the planet from altruism to pleasure…

    Doesn’t work for me; imho broccoli & kale still cattle food.

    Insects – eat to save the planet? No. However, if a locust tastes as good as a prawn, then no problem

    Global Warming – so what, we live from arctic circle to equator thus can cope.

    Climate Change – always has, always will. One volcano erupting causes noticeable change.

    Cultists need de-funding and ignored.

  12. Before moving to New Zealand, I lived in the Lake District,and there for all to see are signs of Glaciation Being curious,I began to research the local geological history and found that the local rocks are a mixture of volcanic and sedimentary origin. All showed signs of Glacial wearing. It seems that up to about 20,000 years ago they had been covered in a mile thick sheet of ice. This enormous quantity of ice had disappeared leaving the lakes behind. As the only people about 20,000 years ago were a few Hunter gatherers cooking their meat on a wood fire, I doubt that they were responsible for melting the ice. Somehow the Planet has managed to heat itself up and then settle into a reasonably stable climate all without the help or interference of man It will cool down again when it is ready and there is nothing we can do about it.This Global Warming/Climate Change panic is all for one thing, Power and money.

  13. ‘…As system so huge and so dynamic….’

    Yet has kept temperature to within a variation of 0,8C in a hundred years, a degree of stability impossible to achieve for the temperature in a living room.

    The belief that Humans can either by accident or design, destabilise or regulate the Earth’s Climate system by adjusting slightly the less than 3% contribution they make of a trace gas in the atmosphere, is the thinking of the mad-house.

  14. ‘Reducing our meat intake is crucial… ‘ er, insects are meat, idiot! And what do insects eat? Plants and sometimes other insects, so unless we want the trillions of farmed insects that would be necessary to strip the Planet bare of its vegetation, we would have to grow large amounts of stuff for the insects to eat.

    Farming trillions of insects will require more energy, food, water and labour than large animals.

    So how will shifting feeding of plant matter to very small animals of which we shall have to eat an equivalent mass as we eat of large animals make any difference? We would still have to eat 1kg of insect meat to replace a 1kg of cow, pig, sheep, chicken meat.

    And mass for mass meat has a greater nutritional value than plants, so vegans have to eat a greater mass of vegetation than they would meat to get the same nourishment which is why they all take dietary supplements. (There is a reason why herbivores spend most of the day eating.) That means more land needed to grow plants for Humans and insects. Currently a lot of meat is produced on land not able to grow grains, vegetables and fruit.

    The problem is none of these people understand science or for that matter the realities of the World around them. It is why we should never have replaced lunatic asylums with care in the community… the idiots are free to roam.

Comments are closed.