Marcel Dicke: Why not eat insects?

http://www.ted.com Marcel Dicke makes an appetizing case for adding insects to everyone's diet. His message to squeamish chefs and foodies: delicacies like locusts and caterpillars compete with meat in flavor, nutrition and eco-friendliness.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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[Darkskies Siren]

Just remember we need those herds of animals to turn around the desertification problem though... 

[dylz84]

eat it from the butt end then

[0utcastEric916]

this comment has nothing to do with the video content but that song at 14:20 is a song that i had somewhere but cant remember what its called. someone please help me out if you know the name of it. its killing me.

[anonimox1990]

What do you mean? Elaborate.

[Jacob Ogden]

In either case the fleas carried the disease they didn't make it. The black plague isn't a flee disease it's a rat disease that fleas carry, mad cow disease is something the cows carry. Limes disease can be transmitted by bugs but again isn't a bug disease plus he said no recombination ie. mutations are caused in insects to make humans sick.

[Jacob Ogden]

Didn't you see the FDA allows a certain number of insects in all food chocolate with ant legs or juice with fly larvae are allowed.

[Jacob Ogden]

Everything Agnesanonymous said is correct but food born illness isn't just live transmutable organisms like trichinosis (pork worms), or mad cow/wasting disease (mad cow for deer) some are post secondary organisms like many bacteria or fungus. So yes it is if they start to grow something nasty but you can't get the locust flu.

[SunScourge]

Currently the ones eaten most in Holland are meal worms and locusts. I started with meal worms as they don't have clear features (eyes, legs) and they're quite decorative, too! And you can always grind them up if you want to ^^

[freakbyte]

I dont get why this video is in the "Gross" playlist. What's so gross about this exactly?

[Kodoushi]

If you can eat shrimp, crab, lobster and so on, you can eat insects as well. There's no real difference..

[Agnesanonymous]

Very unlikely if the product is raised and farmed on human consumable products (not feces and pesticides). The problem we have with pork, for instance, is that the DNA is very similar to our own. Insects have virtually a completely different DNA so illnesses they might otherwise contract, would not be compatible with humans; hopefully that helps you out :)