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Post by Liv the Librarian on May 10, 2014 8:33:54 GMT -6
I don't personally think I would eat insects either. But I am interested in the idea. A few years ago in Melbourne we had a food festival where things like stir-frys with crickets, and fried mealworms etc were served. They were cooked by professional chefs and a lot of people actually like them quite a lot. I found that pretty cool. There's also so many countries where insects are a main source of food for the people. Anyway don't get me started on insects as food haha. I'm kind of passionate about the idea and could go on for hours! Yeah it can be hard to stay healthy. Cost is one of the reasons I actually love being veggie though. I've basically never seen a vegetarian dish that costs more than a meat dish in a menu. I save heaps of money that way haha. It's the opposite here. Veggie meals are a lot more expensive than meat meals because they're ordered less frequently. Also, I'm keen on the idea of insects as food as well, but I just don't know if I could do it. Especially not crickets. They're too disgusting to me after keeping them for my lizards. I could possibly eat tarantula, I've heard it's really good roasted over a fire and actually tastes similar to chicken.
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Post by Crouton on May 10, 2014 17:42:59 GMT -6
Oh really? Damn I would hate that so much. One of the reasons I've always loved being veggie is because I save money here, both in shopping and in eating at restaurants. I've actually wondered before if more people I know would be veggie if they knew how much money I saved, since I think that's an aspect many people don't think about.
Yeah if I ever did eat bugs they would have to be cooker really well, or like, fried in batter or something so I couldn't see them and could get the image out of my mind of what they are.
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Post by Liv the Librarian on May 11, 2014 11:47:15 GMT -6
I'd probably have to be really hungry too. Like right now... if someone offered me a roasted tarantula I'd probably eat it faster than someone could spell "Mississippi" backwards.
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Post by Crouton on May 11, 2014 18:19:52 GMT -6
Hahaha nice. I actually find it interesting that where you live vegetarian dishes are more expensive because they are ordered less. Here vegetarian dishes are less expensive because dish-prices are based on ingredient prices, and meat is usually expensive. The more expensive the meat, the most expensive the dish. For example, lobster would be very expensive, because lobster is expensive to buy. Where as a salad or soup would often be cheaper since it's cheaper to make. I thought that was sort of out pricing was done everywhere, as it's seems to be the most practical way to price food. So it's blowing my mind to know that in America it is done by how much it is ordered. It does seem a bit impractical but I guess they have their reasons.
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Post by Liv the Librarian on May 12, 2014 13:56:38 GMT -6
It's not like that everywhere here. Most places don't even offer vegetarian dishes (unless you count salads). It depends on the restaurant that you're going to I guess. I just know that where I work, despite the meat prices being out of this world, a 1/4 lb veggie burger costs more than a 1/4 lb burger.
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Post by Crouton on May 12, 2014 17:20:20 GMT -6
Ah okay, yeah that makes more sense. Where I grew up there wasn't a lot of veggie food, but I'm lucky now because I live in a big city that has a huge culture of veggie food. There's vegan and vegetarian restaurants all over the place. I know what it can be like in a small town though with not many options.
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Post by sjfaerlind on May 12, 2014 20:24:25 GMT -6
Bugs are supposed to be great protein sources. I think I could eat them in a survival situation, but probably not voluntarily under any other circumstances. I just worry that they'd have to kill them before they cook them. There'd be nothing worse than being fried, eaten raw or battered alive... *shudders*
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Post by Crouton on May 12, 2014 21:06:15 GMT -6
There's probably some way of killing them so they aren't cooked alive, not sure what this is though. Although bugs do have different pain sensors than mammals do, so it wouldn't be the equivalent of like, cooking a cow alive. I'd have to look into it though, I don't know much about the actual process of harvesting bugs for food, I just know that farming them is way more sustainable than farming anything like cattle, sheep or pigs.
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Post by sjfaerlind on May 12, 2014 21:15:08 GMT -6
Pain is pain to my way of thinking. Squishing bugs seems more humane than cooking them alive I would think. Here one second and dead the next.... I dunno about the ecological impact of farming bugs though. If they ever escaped, that could be REALLY problematic, particularly if they weren't native to the area that was farming them. I visited a butterfly conservatory once and our tour guide was telling us about all the safety measures they had in place to prevent the butterflies from accidentally being released into the environment. They had to have all these fail-safes in place before they were allowed to import exotic species. The tour guide said it was tougher than you would think...bugs can be difficult to contain.
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Post by Erehsidne on May 13, 2014 0:08:04 GMT -6
I'm sticking with somewhat healthy food. Lots of vegetables etc. No pasta, bread, rice, potatoes etc. Sometimes I eat popcorn. But I am trying to cut as much carbs out of my diet as possible, they make my stomach swell, and I don't want it looking like cookie dough. Since I only eat about 1300 kcal a day, I have to stick with food with a low calorie amount so that I actually can eat enough to get full.
Crouton, I saw that you are a vegetarian, but love cheese. I don't know how it is where you are from, but here in Sweden, most cheese contains rennetan, therefore making it very hard to eat it as a vegetarian. But I'm sure you know that?
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Post by Crouton on May 13, 2014 0:46:19 GMT -6
Yes I know about rennett, there's actually a lot of cheese here that is free of rennant, so it's pretty easy to find it. Also a lot of white cheese like feta etc don't have it.
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Post by Crouton on May 13, 2014 0:49:01 GMT -6
Pain is pain to my way of thinking. Squishing bugs seems more humane than cooking them alive I would think. Here one second and dead the next.... I dunno about the ecological impact of farming bugs though. If they ever escaped, that could be REALLY problematic, particularly if they weren't native to the area that was farming them. I visited a butterfly conservatory once and our tour guide was telling us about all the safety measures they had in place to prevent the butterflies from accidentally being released into the environment. They had to have all these fail-safes in place before they were allowed to import exotic species. The tour guide said it was tougher than you would think...bugs can be difficult to contain. The reason why it's more sustainable to farm insects is that they are tiny. You can farm millions of them in the same space where you could only farm several hundred cattle. And huge expanses of land and natural environment worldwide have been destroyed to make space for grazing cattle, since they need a lot of room. Then there's also the problems of the increased methane from cows etc. Bugs can be farmed indoors at a much higher rate. I'm not saying either situation is ideal, I mean, that's why I'm vegetarian after all, I can just see how farming insects would be better for the environment.
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Post by Erehsidne on May 13, 2014 0:50:31 GMT -6
Yes I know about rennett, there's actually a lot of cheese here that is free of rennant, so it's pretty easy to find it. Also a lot of white cheese like feta etc don't have it. That must be nice! Here it's almost impossible to find cheese without it!
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Post by Crouton on May 13, 2014 1:22:59 GMT -6
Yeah I'm lucky I live in an area with a huge range of foods, and markets and even speciality cheese shops haha. It's pretty easy to find every type of cheese here.
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