No insects as food ?

[Sapyx]

Insects aren't animals?

Gotta agree with this one. To quote the in-game description of "Animal meat":

Flesh - and other elements - harvested from a vast selection of once-living creatures. In many places a luxury item with some ceremonial importance. Illegal in some jurisdictions.

I's say this would include anything non-aquatic - including insects and insectoids.

Raising and killing animals to satisfy one's taste is inefficient and a nasty business. In the ED future almost all meat would be lab-grown with perhaps just a few rare-goods being flesh from a live animal.

See the above quote: "animal meat" is from an animal killed for food. "Synthetic meat" is a different in-game commodity, with a much lower price (one-third of the price of "natural" meat), sourced from high-tech planets rather than agricultural ones, with the following description:

Meat that is synthesised in an industrial scale. The process relies on DNA from species from old Earth. The DNA is adjusted so muscle tissue is grown in huge quantities without the rest of the animal.

Growing animals specifically to kill and eat them may indeed be inefficient, but when you can sprawl out across a billion Earth-like worlds, can terraform new Earth-like worlds in just a couple of decades and the transport costs between worlds is negligible, then "efficiency" is irrelevant.

Many of us routinely ship animal meat in bulk. Very few of us have ever shipped synthetic meat in bulk. Why? Because animal meat is one of the more profitable commodities in the game, while synthetic meat is not.

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Thargoids are insects right?

Thargoids are ammonia-based insectoids. Biting into a live one would be an extremely unpleasant way to die by a combination of suffocation, ammonia poisoning and frostbite. Even if you killed and cooked it, It would still taste terrible, and almost certainly would not contain any human-compatible nutrition.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Many of us routinely ship animal meat in bulk. Very few of us have ever shipped synthetic meat in bulk. Why? Because animal meat is one of the more profitable commodities in the game, while synthetic meat is not.

Except for Sanuma Decorative Meat:

One of the most inventive of synthetic meat specialists, growing the meat into fabulous sculptures of flesh "grown on the bone".

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Some insects are quite tasty, some grubs taste like gouda cheese.

I agree. I've tasted a few different insects on holidays in Asia. Some are delicious, others not.

If cheese is ever added to the game, they need to add Casu Marzu.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;vZ_-JzM-YQg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ_-JzM-YQg[/video]

 

[Sapyx]

Except for Sanuma Decorative Meat:

Can't disagree there. [big grin]

On the subject of daily protein in the ED universe: the lower classes, the slaves, the vast bulk of the population of the galaxy would eat cheap "replicated" food 3D-printed from Food Cartridges (another in-game food commodity), the ingredients of which are either algae-based or chemical-based. Nutritionally balanced and healthy, but about as appealing as eating fake McDonalds cheeseburgers for 3 meals a day, every day. "Synthetic meat" would be an occasional reward or treat for them, and perhaps the more staple fare of the middle classes. Actual "animal meat" would be reserved for the wealthy elite, and/or for ritual purposes.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Slaves may also end up being the end users of Tiolce Waste 2 Paste Units:

The original and best, turning all your waste into a nutritious and wholesome paste.

Well, slaves and explorers.

 

[Jaylem]

This does make a lot of sense... it would really help the galactic famine problem quite a bit.

perhaps a new and cheap food commodity could be added, maybe even an insect processor to turn them into dense protein patties would be an idea too??

 

[Tryst]

[video=youtube;ZijPsDgISh0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZijPsDgISh0[/video]
Customer: Waiter, there's a fly in my duck soup.
Waiter: That's not surprising sir, you did order dukhsi soup, not duck soup.

 

[Wedgetail]

Biting into a live one would be an extremely unpleasant way to die by a combination of suffocation, ammonia poisoning and frostbite. Even if you killed and cooked it, It would still taste terrible, and almost certainly would not contain any human-compatible nutrition.

That's just what those thargoid-loving hippies *want* us to think

 

[Pyrotiger]

I hear they taste like chicken with windowcleaner sauce. Mmmm.