WEBVTT - Are crickets the future of food? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:14.800 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh W. 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:21.959 Chuck Clark. There's Charles Malcolm Bryant, and there's Jerry the 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:25.200 whiz Roll. And it sounds like an Aaron Cooper poster 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:29.680 gone bad. Yeah already. Yeah, we'll have like the swirling 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.840 face like the weird people in Jacob's Ladder. It's funny. 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.040 We had a office visitor a couple of weeks ago 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:36.720 and I don't think you were here, and the in fact, 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.000 I know you weren't here because you would have been 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:42.080 in here, but there was. There's our great step Brothers, 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:44.760 you know the movie Step Brothers. For those of you 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.159 out here out there, there's a promo of John c 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.440 Riley and Will Ferrell with as like with an Olan 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:56.080 Mills type U you know post photograph and Aaron Cooper 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:00.000 are our buddy from Kansas who does our great photoshop stuff. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.240 Uh made us into I was John c Rally and 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.400 your Will Ferrell and the guy came in and I 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:07.840 was looking around and I was like, oh man, these 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:09.960 are great, and you know, look at that, you know 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:11.840 that looks like I don't know, it looks like it 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:16.840 could be like something like the movie step Brother or something. Said, Oh, 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.080 that's exactly what it is. I tried to make him 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.560 not feel bad. That was nice of you. That was 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.679 very gracious of you as a host. Yeah, Like he 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:29.880 didn't quite zone in on all of them were us. 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:35.520 He should have like clapped loudly beside his ear. Uh man, 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.360 I had a little scary thing today. What happened? If 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:41.280 I may, this is kind of part p s A. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:45.280 This has nothing to do with cricket farming. But um, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.960 we're getting our our basement water proofed because for thirteen 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:54.240 years it's been leaking water like really bad, so much 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.720 so that we have mold now oh yeah, black mold. Yes, 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.520 And we're also getting mold remediation and done at the 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.160 same time. So needless to say, that's a fun, fun 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.360 way to spend a lot of money. Um, but I 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:12.040 come home today and my carbon monoxide alarm is going 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:16.440 off because these yahoo's are using a gas powered concrete 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:21.200 saw in our basement. No, and it's like full on saying, 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.480 you know, get out of the house, and my animals 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.360 are in there, so like, and I just happened to 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:29.519 go home after I went to a coffee shop to 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.800 study because I needed to grab something. But like, I 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.840 literally could have come home to dead animals man and 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:42.359 dead workman. Yeah those guys too. Wow, I'll bet they're 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:44.960 not the sharpest text in the box. Anyway. It was weird, man, 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.120 And they were down there. I mean, not only did 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.080 they not have on so much as a dust mask 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:51.960 for the for the gas, but like concrete dust is 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.880 really dangerous too. They're like, I don't care. I've got 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.360 Obama care. It was so weird, man, and just it 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.720 freaked me out to the point where Emily she wanted 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.639 to like fire the guy. Uh he wasn't even there, 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:07.880 like the you know, the foreman or the company. Yeah, 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:09.680 and she wanted to be like, man, if he doesn't 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.920 understand that this is dangerous, And he said, you know, 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.079 open up your windows, it'll be clear in fifteen minutes. 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:17.760 And it took two hours for that alarm to stop 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.600 going on. Oh my gosh, Wow, that is really scary. 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:22.040 It was really bad, man. I was out on my 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.080 deck basically for the rest of the morning until I 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:29.600 came in with my dogs and my cat in a crate. Man, 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:34.320 that's like how some people commit suicide. I know, you know, yeah, 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.320 and these guys are just doing it grattis for you. Yeah, 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:42.400 it was, uh yeah, anyway, so I'm slightly shaken. Yeah, 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.160 I'll bet. I'm glad you made it. Man. You look good. 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.320 You look okay, thank you. You look healthy. Your pallor 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:53.320 isn't gaunt. I think you're You're okay. I just gotta 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.880 calm down here. That the sound of the crickets on 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.840 our miniature cricket farm here for soothing me. At least 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.200 I know they'd put me to sleep. I'm glad we 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.120 set that up. That was pretty good. That was one 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:08.120 of our better segways. Sadly enough. Thanks. Um. Yeah, we 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.760 are talking crickets, aren't we. Yeah, we covered into mafaji A. 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.480 Meant to look up when, but it was. It seems 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.920 like a long time ago, right, And that's eating bugs 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:22.800 and insects. But this is focusing specifically on crickets because 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.200 by all accounts, they seem like sort of the our 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.320 best bet at trying to get something like this going 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.320 in America for real. Yeah, they're I mean, they're pretty 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.520 easy to raise. Uh, they don't require much space. You 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:41.960 can set up your own cricket farm at home. Um. 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.160 And really we should say the point of all this, 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.120 the whole reason anybody would want people to start raising 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:52.240 crickets at home is because the um, well, the the 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:58.320 earth is about to collapse and our food supply is 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.520 in in real danger. Right. So I've got some stats 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:08.080 for you, chuck. So, meat consumption per capita has um 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.120 increased into the developed world. Actually it's doubled in the 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.640 last thirty years, and that's thanks in no small part 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:19.839 to the rise of the brick countries Brazil, Russia, India, 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.880 and China, who have huge, massive populations. As they entered 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:31.240 capitalist um the capitalist global economy um, have generally become enriched, 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.000 and the more money they have, the more meat civilization 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.479 tends to consume, at least these days. Right. So that 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:40.640 doesn't seem bad in and of itself until you look 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.719 into what kind of resources it takes to actually raise meat. 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.720 So you're ready for this one, I don't know. I'm 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:53.360 afraid to produce one pound of meat that's a half 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:58.960 a kilo basically of meat beef. Sorry, yeah, um, it 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.960 requires about four hundred gallons of water. I've heard stuff 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.080 like that before, which is like absolutely nuts, even when 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:09.280 you consider that Not only are you watering the cow, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.359 you're also watering, you know that the crops that you 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.760 feed to the cow, So there's double water consumption. But 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.800 one of the problem, one of the reasons cattle beef 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:24.679 requires so much um water is because you only consume 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:29.760 of the cow. So the water is going to sustain 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:31.840 parts of the cow you're not even eating, right, So 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.719 there's a lot of wasted water, even if your water 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:39.600 delivery system is efficient, right, that's just water. Fifty one 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:44.279 of the greenhouse gases that are admitted on planet Earth 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:52.560 come from animal agriculture and um. One third of the 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.400 world's adequate or high quality crop land has been lost 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.480 to erosion or pollution in the last forty years. And 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.760 then that's a huge problem, whether we are all vegetarians 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.520 or not, because we're talking crop land, but we use 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.560 way more crop land to feed our livestock than we 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.640 do to feed ourselves. Right, Something like fifty six million 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.280 acres of land are used to grow crops in the 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:20.560 United States to feed animals. Four million are used to 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:25.320 grow crops for human consumption. So there's a lot, a 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.840 lot of resources that are used up just from meat 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.640 based diets, right, A lot of people say, well, just 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.240 go to plant based diets, and other people say you 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.200 can't get enough protein from plant based diets, which apparently 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.400 is not true from from what I'm seeing. Um, other 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:44.880 people are saying, fine, you want some protein, I got 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.960 something for you, and it's crickets. Yeah, I'm kind of 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.440 a I'm not surprised, but it goes to show you 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:55.840 the population boom. If meat consumption is increased that much 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:00.400 in the face of probably more vegetarianism and v aganism 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.160 then ever before too. You know, well, that's kind of heartening, 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.120 like if if there does seem to be if I 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:10.200 guess if if societies follow, Yeah, like we should. I mean, 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:14.080 we've been dancing around doing episodes on vegetarianism and veganism 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.920 for a while, so we should probably tackle that at 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:21.160 some point. I'm kind of curious about the history because 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:25.320 it seems like in the like probably since the onset 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.360 of America until uh and then I'm just I'm talking 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.480 off the top of my head here, but until probably 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:38.640 the nineties, it seems like everybody was just like meat, meat, meat, meat, meat. Well, 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.040 there's a I mean, it's definitely associated with wealth, right, 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.000 if you can afford to eat a nice steak kind 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.600 of indicates you have a certain amount of status in 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.040 your society, right, well, like the fifties, it seems like 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.840 they would eat steak for lunch, right And I can't 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.520 imagine like a steak for lunch. That seems so indulgent. Yeah, 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.360 I think it is, you know, yeah, like, yeah, just 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:02.880 give me, give me the twenty ounce ribby for lunch. 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.120 It's just I don't know, I can't imagine that. But 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:11.640 in three martinis. I don't argue with that part. That 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.520 is pretty indulgent. Three martinis in a twenty ounce by 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.360 four lunch. I mean that was don Draper, you know. Yeah, 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.840 I never saw that show. I know, I never saw it. 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:26.600 It's it's available. Where is it out there? Really? I 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.800 thought they erased it all. Yeah they did. They said 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:33.800 that's it, it's done. Didn't he go become a lumberjack 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:38.080 in at the end? No he did? Okay, oh that's 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.360 texting uh oh man. And then we talked about the 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.200 ending of that show. Greg, I actually never saw the 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.800 end of that one. You just told me about it. Yeah, 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:49.640 I think you stild it to yourself just to watch 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:54.560 the finale. Um. So this dude Kevin, Uh, how would 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:59.520 you pronounce that b B A C H, which is fine, 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.599 that's clearly Bach and h U b R. You just 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.080 don't often see two h's side by side. So anyway, 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:11.599 Kevin Bakuba Uh is a dude that is kind of championing, 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.040 not kind of very much championing this movement. In two 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.720 thousand seven, he went to Thailand and tasted crickets deep 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.880 fried crickets and Uh, he's from California, and he was like, Hey, 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.800 this is really good. He's been far out. They've been 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.840 doing this UM in Thailand since the late nineties. The 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:34.320 king established a big growing program for crickets and cricket 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.400 farms UM education in schools, like you know, this is 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:40.800 a good way to get protein in your diet. And 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:45.640 he said, I think this is the direction of America 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.720 should go. And I'm going to get in on the 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.880 the money side of it. Yeah, like the farming of it. 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.960 Apparently it's a twenty million dollar industry already. Not bad. No, 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.000 it isn't UM. And we should say that Bach cuber 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:04.120 Was is one of several um people who are into this, uh. 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:08.360 The idea of cricket farming, commercial cricket farming UM, and 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.680 he's definitely one of the o G s for sure. 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:15.520 His business was the first to get approval to sell 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.320 crickets as food in the United States. We got FDA 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:23.480 approval because the cricket industry actually is kind of old. 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.199 Well it's not too old, but I saw anywhere between 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.480 fifty and seventy years old in the US UM. And 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.040 they're raised to say feed fish for commercial fish farming, 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.520 or to grind up as a protein supplement for um 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.960 livestock feed. So people have been raising crickets for a while, 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.720 or to feed to like reptiles, um to sell them 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:47.280 to pet stores. So there there was an established infrastructure 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:52.480 of cricket farming UM. But the making the transition from 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:57.480 selling it to feed to cows or fish or snakes 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.960 to selling it to people to eat directly, that's that 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.400 was a big step, and bok Huber was the first 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:06.920 one to take it in the US UM. I should 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:08.480 just say the reason I point out he's just one 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:10.839 of many is because this How Stuff Works article is 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.400 basically like here's my report on Kevin bok Huber's ted 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:19.280 ted talk. You know, yeah, I think just he he 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.760 definitely deserves you know, credit because he's leading the charge, 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:24.760 but so are other people as well. Yeah, he's wo 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.480 went throughout this thing though. Yeah. Um. And you know, 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:31.840 if you listen to the Intamafaji episode episode no, it's 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:36.559 it's episode. UM. We pointed out then and it bears 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:40.280 repeating that America is new to this, but I think 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:44.240 it was. Canada and the United States and in Western 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.800 Europe are literally the only places on Earth that don't 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.120 consume insects as a regular part of their diet these days. 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.040 So I saw so this article kind of says the 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:59.160 standard of the world regularly consumes insects as part of 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.560 their diet. I saw that there's a a Food and 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:07.920 Agriculture organization, the u N Organization reports said something it 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.320 was more like about a third of the populations rather 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:15.079 than eight percent, maybe like thirty which is still significant. 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:20.360 It is um and in in the West specifically, the 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:25.080 idea of eating bugs is not It's not commonplace, right, 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:30.560 And I actually saw a pretty good explanation for why. Um, 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:36.800 Like thirteen of the fourteen large livestock animals that are 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:42.080 domesticated are found in Eurasia and made their way over 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.120 to the America's and those things those animals provide not 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:53.040 just meat, but also things like milk, um, clothing, everything. Basically, 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.559 So since since these what you would call Western countries 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.200 had access to these domesticated animal most they never needed 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.199 bugs as a food source. And then secondly, since they 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:10.959 were raising domesticated animals, by definition, they had um a 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:17.280 sedentary um agricultural lifestyle, which meant that their exposure to 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.520 bugs was bugs as pests. So not only were bugs 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.600 not edible, they were something you that were just undesirable 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:30.280 on their face. So that led to the it closed 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.120 the door on bugs being eaten by Westerners, and so 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.400 that that came to be filled by a sense of disgust, 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.480 which is a basic human emotion, but it's the only 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:45.240 one that's culturally bound, which means you learn what is 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:51.480 disgusting from your from your cultural group, for sure, but 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.280 that also means you can unlearn it too. Well, this 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:58.200 big cricket has anything to do with it. Uh, why 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.560 don't we take a quick break and gonna come back 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.800 and talked about a UN report that kind of changed 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:26.680 a lot of things about four years ago? Change, all right, 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:32.120 So I promised you a UN report. Uh, there was 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.040 a big kind of sea change. I don't know about 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:39.800 sea change. It was the beginning beginning of the sea change. Uh. 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.800 They issued a report called Edible Insects Colon Future Prospects 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.240 for Food and Feed Security, and it was basically just 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.720 championing um intoma fagy and all the benefits that surround it, 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:57.680 like how nutrient dense crickets and other insects are, the 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:04.480 fact that it's um socially sustainable, UM economically viable and friendly, 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.800 environmentally friendly, and it kind of, you know, kind of 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.600 paints it as like, hey, this this is the future, 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:12.960 or it could be part of the future at least 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:18.640 of getting protein into you know, Americans, right. And the 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.840 report itself didn't focus exclusively on crickets, but crickets feature 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.840 prominently in the report to the it was about. It 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.800 was about bugs in general and eating bugs in general UM, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:31.840 and it was it made a pretty big splash. I 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.200 remember when it came out like that. It really hit 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.840 the news cycle pretty hard. But it also caught the 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.400 attention of that box cuber guy who said, all right, 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:42.480 I'm gonna I think I'm gonna get into this because 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.800 he had already been exposed to eating crickets in Thailand. 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.240 And then that when that UN report came out, he 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:49.880 I think um began his start up here in the 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.560 States of his commercial cricket farm start up. Yeah. It's 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.600 funny they have put in this article that it was 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.200 the most popular document in the history of the u N. 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.280 I didn't I didn't see that anywhere. I think that 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.000 was he said that at his ted report. Yeah yeah, 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.719 but um yeah, they definitely made a splash. I'll give 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:10.720 him that for sure. Yeah, he spoke at a ted 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:14.760 X Youngstown, Ohio, because that's where he's base, that's where 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.600 his company is, and I guess he he just made 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.760 up his own ted X probably. All right, So let's 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:25.040 talk about crickets. Um. Well, all insects in particular are 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.040 very rich in protein. Like we've talked about. They have 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.480 a lot of healthy fats, a lot of zinc, a 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.960 lot of iron, a lot of calcium. Uh. And there's 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:40.320 something called I guess efficient animals. Um, well, yeah, I 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.200 mean this is when vegetarians and vegans are like, these 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.159 kind of terms make their skin crawl. I'm sure. But 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.960 the kind of efficiency you get out of raising, in killing, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.800 and eating an animal is on a spectrum. And you 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.240 know from cows, like you talked about, it's probably the worst. 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.760 I wouldn't guess, don't you think? Right? Right? The animal 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.600 itself is efficient at converting food that you feed it 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.440 into stuff that you can get from it. Yeah, So, 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:11.600 like you said, not a lot of the cow is 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.920 used to eat. No, it's like of a cow is 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.119 is edible and digestible. And I think the chicken is 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:24.840 about the most efficient animal protein right now, stuff like crickets. 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.359 So there's two different things here, right. So you've got 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.840 um efficiency in nutrient conversion, which is say, like if 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.560 you eat an apple, you can convert you know x 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.280 amount of the energy available in the apple into you know, 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:44.600 energy for yourself metabolism, right right, Yeah? That but poop 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.879 is waste, so that stuff wouldn't count toward efficiency. It 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.760 would actually subtract from your efficiency and lower your efficiency. 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.639 If you ate an apple and used every bit of 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:59.080 it and it produced zero poop, you would have efficiently 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:03.159 converted that app all into useful energy. Right. It would 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.239 be to be a magic apple and you wouldn't need 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:09.320 a poop shoot, um, but instead you do. Because there 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:13.960 is no such thing as percent efficiency in any animal, right, 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.280 But some are better than others, like you were saying, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.479 and with a cricket, it's something like, um, they're like 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:26.040 twelve times more efficient at converting food into usable energy 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.959 or stored in this case stored protein. Right, So for 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:34.119 every kilogram of live cricket weight, which is a pretty 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.800 substantial amount of crickets, but but kilogram to kilogram or 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.439 pound a pound, it just takes one point seven kilograms 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.359 of feed to produce one kilogram of live crickets. Not 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:50.200 bad for a cow. It takes ten kilograms of feed 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:55.000 to produce one kilogram of beef, very inefficient by comparison. 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.360 So if you take the fact that it doesn't take 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:03.439 much feed to produce a biomass of crickets, and that 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:08.399 crickets are edible and digestible compared to the cows edible 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:13.119 and digestible, then you really have a if you're just 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.120 going pound to pound or kilogram to kilogram, and much 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:20.440 more nutrient dense, much more efficient, and then therefore much less, 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:25.400 much less wasteful um animal that you could eat. Yeah, 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:26.640 a lot of that has to do with the fact 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.160 that crickets are cold blooded, so they're very much more 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:33.560 efficient at converting that feed into protein. And um, crickets 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:38.480 aren't even the most efficient insect, you know, No, huh, 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:42.960 I'm not sure which one is. Actually, I think meal 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:47.040 worms are pretty efficient. You just said that because you're 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.720 eating a meal worm. Right, Well, I have a meal 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:51.720 worm farm. I was gonna ask you to buy in 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:57.320 on huh all right in my pocket. See is that 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.560 a meal worm farm in your pocket? It is I 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.639 pocket mulch uh. So, like we mentioned Mr bach Uba 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:09.920 is um. If he's not German, he should be Kevin 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:15.600 back Ruber. I think he's a He's Irish German. Maybe 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:18.360 it's spelled k v in though, so we're just inserting 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:23.400 vowels for me, right, like d n C E. What's that? 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:29.159 It's this band? Okay, probably the young person's band, I believe, so, 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:32.199 no wonder, I don't know, but he has one of 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:34.280 I think they're about and this has probably changed even 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.640 since this has written about twenty five or so cricket 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.639 startup farms here in the United States. Yeah, I couldn't 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.600 find the current number. Yeah, let's just say at least 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.840 twenty five, although all but they go under pretty quick, 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.800 you think, so. I could see I could see losing 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:55.160 your shirt on cricket farming right now, it's so it's 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.760 just so early, and and the market is so not there, 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.480 and the stuff that producing is so expensive. Well, and 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.480 their output right now is still really small. Um, in 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.600 the in the early years here. But you know, the 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.639 dream for for him and all these cricket farmers is 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:15.280 that that one day it will it will. I don't 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.080 think they have designs that will ever be like in 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:20.080 some parts of the world where it's on every menu 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:22.680 and every restaurant, but they would certainly like to see 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:28.080 cricket snacks in grocery stores and um menu offerings and 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:33.800 some some of the more wacky hipster restaurants at least. Yeah. 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.480 Did you do you watch Shirt Tank? Oh? You know, 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:38.600 I do? Okay, So did you see the one with 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:42.359 Rose Wang and Laura Dasario. I've seen them all, Okay. 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.000 So you saw the one with Chirps their snack, their 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:47.919 cricket based stack product, Chirps. I want to try it. 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:52.280 I do too. Um. I'm not like, I'm not an 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.800 adventurous eater, as you know, but I would totally try 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.000 fried crickets and things that doesn't gross me out for 0:22:57.040 --> 0:22:58.840 some reason. No, I I and I would try it 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:00.199 as well, and do you I don't know if you 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.840 remember not. But when we did that uh locust thing 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:06.439 for Science Channel, it's like the second time has come 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:10.880 up this month. Weirdly enough. Um, they made fried locusts 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:13.600 and I refused to eat them. And it wasn't because 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:16.280 I was grossed out. It was because I was sure 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:18.359 that I was going to have some sort of weird 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:22.000 allergic reaction to them, and I would have had, yeah, 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:23.879 and I would have had to have been, like, you know, 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:26.920 life flighted somewhere to a hospital and would have missed 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.760 my flight home. Um. That that is the only reason 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:33.080 I didn't eat them. It had nothing to do with disgust. 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:37.040 But in that u N report they address allergies and 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:40.880 they said that it's actually exceedingly rare that somebody has 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:45.720 an allergic reaction to an arthropod um or to an insect. 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.240 I should say, um, But the reason why I thought 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:52.080 so was because, yeah, I had had um, I like 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:55.800 a shrimp blow up once and I just was not 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:58.800 about to roll the dice on that, not for what 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:01.679 Science Channel was paying. Well, I think it's very funny 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:07.160 that you, uh, I remember your shrimp. You're shrimp years 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:11.480 in that you had an allergic reaction to shrimp, but 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:15.439 you wanted to eat shrimp so bad you started to 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:17.439 eat shrimp a little bit just to see if you 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:21.360 could eat shrimp. Yeah. Shrimp chips, yeah, which use real 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:24.359 shrimp powder. It's like I think Japanese or Korean or 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:27.480 Chinese delicacy. But now you can eat shrimp, right. Yeah, 0:24:27.520 --> 0:24:29.879 I did immunotherapy and now I'm fine. I can eat 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:32.119 shrimp all day long. I love that you were so 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:35.239 dedicated to Yeah. I love shrimp. Man, good shrimp, like 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:40.440 season with old Bay, just simple stuff. Oh man, so good. Uh, 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:41.879 this is a great time to bring up one of 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:45.199 my big pet peeves. I know that cooking with shrimp 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:50.359 heads and tails on increases the flavor quite a bit. Yeah, 0:24:50.400 --> 0:24:54.600