Free Range Angus Crickets, Locally Sourced of Course.

I've read a few articles about this, and while it seems like a great idea, the featured products they showed were insanely overpriced compared to vertebrate protein. If they can get the cost down, it might work, especially with the help of some ad wizards.

And for the record, yeah, I'd eat crickets. We eat bugs all the time without knowing it, don't we? And after all, what are shrimp but the cockroaches of the sea?

 

And lobsters are well known bugs along with crawfish, I see no problem with crickets and grasshoppers. Spiders and grubs may be a bit more of a challenge. In concept, I can totally see people enjoying a bowl of fried crickets like they do tortilla chips.

 

I remember a summer when I was about 8 years old where we had a huge cricket infestation for some reason. There were millions of them. They would get inside the house and chirp all night. I remember my dad setting boxes upon boxes of poison out in the garage every night, and using either a shop vac or a broom and dust pan to clean up the piles in the morning. The thing I remember most vividly is the smell. Our entryway and garage smelled like dead crickets that whole summer.

So no, I don't want a fucking cricket shake. Thanks though.

 

There's already a cricket-based protein bar (the flour involves crickets) that was on Shark Tank and Cuban bought into.

I'd have no problem eating insects, provided they tasted good and were priced reasonably compared to similar products.

Alt. Focus: What has the potential to revolutionize the way we live? Standing desks for students.

From their website:

 

My friend kept exotic lizards. Which meant he needed a live food source. So he started a roach farm. In a 10 gallon fish tank. Hundreds of them, possibly a thousand, constantly scraping and rubbing their paper-like exoskeletons, the sound of tiny feet and insect movement. All day, all night, while you slept, while you ate. Roaches moving. A mass undulating like bracken water of a stream.

You can keep your fucking crickets. I'm imagining them on my tongue and sounding like Rice Krispies in milk.

Alt. Focus: I am a big fan of alternative energy. There is no reason in a state like FL there isn't any state initiative to get solar panels on every house, building, bus stop, and sedentary homeless person. Florida Atlantic University had a wave energy program going, but that disappeared. There are also mini-windmills for residential use, which I think are gnarly. But expensive (10k+). Methane power plants are cool too; they burn sewer waste. If Tesla pulls off a better battery, one that can run for 400 miles and charge in 20 minutes, then there will be no reason to keep petrol based cars whatsoever.

The mad scientists are also developing a new breed of cow which farts less. Apparently cows are THE major producer of greenhouse gasses. We will call it an eco-burger.

Been a few articles lately about dwindling food and water sources. People on the coast have a chance to get into water desalinization early. No one will, but it's neat to think about.

Also neutering. Huge fan of neutering. If we can keep the population around where it is, or less, that'd be pretty great.

You know what's even cheaper and healthier? Letting them have fucking recess and P.E. because they're children, not inmates. I like where this company's head is at, but the solution is so much easier.

This kind of ties into my alt-focus. Change the way schools operate, back to the way when I came up to make an active, involved, healthy, critically thinking population who actually gives a fuck about all the stuff I just listed.

 

I'd imagine, after a few years in the clink, anything other than stale bread, brown water and the sweaty dingleberries from a man named Snake, would seem exotic and appealing.

 

Wait, isn't that how you make pruno?

 

As my twin boys were growing up, I would constantly have the teachers tell me that they would not pay attention. I kept telling them to make them run a half mile before going into the classroom. Just like puppies, young boys cannot pay attention until they are tired. Of course no teacher would listen too me and the boys grades suffered until High School. What changed? They started to run Cross Country.

 

Except lobsters, crawfish and crabs are much larger, so they have nice juicy hunks of delicious meat. Pop a fried cricket in your mouth and you're eating mainly exoskeleton. And eyes, antennae, wings etc.

Not interested. I'll switch to a soy diet first. Tofu anyone?

 

Focus: Would you try this? What are your thoughts on the idea of insects becoming a diet source for the 1st world?

No. Don't hold your breath.

I ordered some crap from Archie McPhee before, and several years ago they used to have fried crickets and insect suckers.* A buddy and I decided to try the fried crickets. They were disgusting, but pretty much just tasted like really salty and garlicy crispy snack chips.

* I assumed they had gone out of business, but Archie McPhee still exists. No crickets, though. You can still buy the suckers here though:
http://www.amazon.com/Hotlix-CRICKET-LICK-IT-Sucker-Lollipop/dp/B00424L4NC

 

In the future only the rich will be able to afford meats. The proletariat will be forced to choke down cricket 'meat'. Enjoy your gluttony while you can before we are all on the soylent diet. And yes, I enjoy the view as a raving futurist.

 

Maybe if they bred crickets or grasshoppers to be the size of small dogs, and we could enjoy some cricket abdominal meat slathered in butter and Old Bay seasoning.

 

Count me in for a crunchy seasoned cricket snack. My biggest issue with "healthy" snacking is I miss the crunch of chips/pretzels/etc... Give me that with a protein boost? All in.

 

I've eaten cockroaches, beetles and many sorts of crickets. Fuck, I once made olive and cricket breed. I also want to try some mealworms, which I've had before, gut-loaded on carrot puree, as trail snacks. It's no different from prawns or lobsters or crayfish. Just terrestrial and in a different order of invertebrates. Heck, while I'm at it, I've eaten earthworms, which are more a sensation than a taste, but apparently have more protein per ounce than cattle steaks.

 

Did your grasshoppers taste more chicken-like or shrimp-like? I find different species taste different.

 

My girlfriend is the exact same way, and I'm just the opposite. It doesn't bother me to eat whole critters or less familiar cuts like heart or tongue so if it tastes good, I'm probably in.

I wouldn't be surprised to see insects used as additives in foods just like the milkshakes more in the future- you can buy them as flour today and I bet there's lots you can do with that stuff. Just a little spendy though at $50/lb.