That interview made me hungry but Cicadas and Asparagus with Aioli that's disgusting. I can't stand asparagus.

Having worked in the UK meat industry, it amuses me people get squeamish about these kind of things. If you knew what happens before most industrialised food hits your plate, I think a lot of people would starve very quickly. On the plus side the peak meat issue would solve itself.

I have a question, and it's been on my mind for awhile. How does land use and energy density compare between farming bugs as food and pure vegetable farming of higher protein plants like soy beans? I'm a vegetarian too, apparently for similar reasons to Greg. I'd like to be responsible about what I eat in as much as is reasonably possible. I haven't been able to find much good information on bugs vs soy. Does anyone have any numbers I can crunch?

PS: seriously Dan? A powerline adapter? Try an AC router with a 5.0GHz band. It's much faster, has fantastic range and barely anyone uses 5.0GHz yet, so interference is minimal. Check the Asus AC68U, worth every penny.

Hi Vince,

I wasn't sure how to answer your question so I ran it past Daniella Martin. Here's her response.

"Hi there,

Well, this is kind of a toughie. From my understanding, there isn't a solid equivalency, protein-wise, between plants and animals. For one thing, the amino acid profiles are proportionally different. Second, insects, like other animals, are trophic level 2-3, in that they concentrate plant (and sometimes other animal) matter into animal tissue. Finally, I don't think there is sufficient data yet in terms of protein-production-per-acre for insects, as they are just too new. Here in the US, we have only one functioning human-grade bug farm so far, and it just opened this year. By contrast, soybeans have been farmed all over the world for decades, so much has gone into learning about and increasing their efficiency.

So I guess the bottom-line answer, to my knowledge, is that we just don't know yet.

Best regards,

Daniella Martin girlmeetsbug@gmail.com www.girlmeetsbug.com Author, Edible: An Adventure into the World of Eating Insects and the Last Great Hope to Save the Planet"

Cool! Thanks very much Greg! I'm really interested to see how this plays out, I'll keep an eye out for new studies on the topic.

My problem isn't bandwidth speed so much as it is reliability. I've got a brand new Airport Extreme but three walls is too much for it to punch through effectively. The powerline adapter does 20 GBs per second which is fine for me at this point as my Internet is half that.

Yeah power lines do actually work quite well, I used one for quite awhile. I've switched to that AC router now, but it's a great solution for when your microwaves aren't wavy enough. The old power lines used to burn out after awhile, but the new ones seem to work without a problem.

Interested in eating insects? Like chips? Then maybe crisps based on cricket flour is for you?

Chirps!

http://www.sixfoods.com/#products

https://legacy.trycelery.com/shop/chirps

They will be available worldwide in February 2015

Europe is just starting up an industrial scale insect farming company, if anyone wants in on the ground floor: https://www.symbid.com/ideas/6157-invest-in-food-of-the-future So it looks like it's slowly gaining tractiong.

It's funny how it's hard to tell what's a cultural preference, and what's a personal preference when it comes to food. Not eating bugs is a cultural prejudice. One I'm ridding myself of surprisingly easily. Let me know how you go with it :)

If it was a cottage industry, then it would be super efficient, because the bugs would just eat your vege scraps, and then you'd eat the bugs. Like keeping a few chickens in the back yard, but in a terrarium on your table instead.