It’s bonkers to me that people who eat “normal” meat are so opposed to eating insects. Without exception, it basically comes down to not wanting to try new things, which is often tied to conservatism and being scared of change in general.
It shouldn’t be surprising that the politicians fighting this are right wingers who are against this on a cultural level - aka being afraid of change.
I grew up eating seafood but I still hate dealing with it if I have to remove shells and clean it. Telling people to suck it up and eat something they don't want to eat makes no sense to me.
No, insects are ground into a powder and essentially used like flour. You probably wouldn't even know you're eating it if someone didn't tell you. No mouth feel to speak of.
Yeah, some people eat them that way, but when people talk about some vague conspiracy to get people to eat insects, they're referring to the flour and being "forced" to eat things made with that instead of wheat flour.
I actually can't eat lobster either, the giant sea bugs creep me out. Shrimp I'll eat but not if I have to remove the shells and such. Obviously people are different and my disgust sensitivity might be higher than normal. I grew up in a household that ate a lot of seafood so it's not due to lack of trying.
I'm pretty sure everybody removes the shells from shrimp before eating. It's called a carapace, and roaches have them too.
Also, whether or not you specifically eat lobster or shrimp is only somewhat relevant. The point is that people in general eat those things. Lots of people. In fact, lobster is considered a delicacy.
These are essentially insects, and they've been a popular part of human cuisine for a very long time. It is hypocritical. Any difference between the two are entirely mental.
"hypocritical" may not be the best word for it but the point that there isn't much of a difference between some of the foods we already eat (shrimp, lobster, crayfish) and insects and that the primary block to eating insects is a mental one seems pretty inarguable. (it's honestly also likely people do eat insects and just don't know they are--they're everywhere, unintentionally, in the foods we eat.)
Also other than the inherent disgust to bug there is also the fact that since bugs are so small animals they can't be cleaned and separeted to different parts of the animal. This means that part of what you eat is the intestines of the animal with all the fecal matter in it.
I simply don't want shit (or processed shit) in my food. Is that too big of an ask?
Haha. Well I guess the silver lining is that so long it is not proven to be harmfull healthwise it should be ok. It still grosses me out though. Maybe one day I will be brave enought to accept 2% shit in my food so long it is well cooked.
Most fish, shrimp, lobster are prepared so that you aren't eating the intestines. The closest seafood-with-intact-intestines I can think of off the top of my head that makes it to the table is crawfish, and de-veining them is a part of the eating process
Still by the nature o these animals being bigger it is practicality easier to separate the different parts. With everithing else being equal. No matter how bad it is, it is going to be less than 100% of the initial shit ammount unlike with the bugs wich I'll imagine are being crushed whole.
You ever eat a sausage? The casing is made out of intestine. Before it was used as a sausage casing, it was used as a shit container, and it probably still contains traces of shit.
It also probably contains a few radioactive atoms, a bit of mercury here and there, maybe some arsenic…
Until and unless food is synthesized from atoms by a Star Trek replicator, it's going to contain things you don't want to eat. The best we can do is remove most of those things, but try as we might, we can't remove them all.
I'm not necessarily accustomed to eating insects... but even the packaged/processed foods we have today are allowed to be a certain percentage of hair/bug/mouse-poop so that it doesn't become impossible to produce legal food :)
I have tried it for the novelty but I see no reason to make it part of my diet. It is disgusting to me and getting used to it would take a lot of time and suffering, for what reason? I've been a vegetarian before, I'd rather eat peas than insects.
The only reason you don't eat those meats is because you are not used to it. People ate horse meat in Europe regularly until WW2 and cats and dogs are eaten in other part of the world.
Cats and dogs are no more intelligent than cows but we have emotional attachment and historical use (herding and killing rats) for them so in the Western world we prefer to have them as pets.