Yes, it is cricket: Italy gives go-ahead to insect flour for human use
Yes, it is cricket: Italy gives go-ahead to insect flour for human use
Nutrinsect defies Italian food purists with cricket flour that can be incorporated into range of foods
Gonna be honest, if you told me a country was going to start doing this, I would not have picked Italy
60Yeah. Didn't their politicians/farmers lobby block lab grown meat recently.
14Yeah, especially with their right wing government at the moment.
4Online fascist: The LIBS want you to eat BUGS
Original recipe fascists in government:
3
Yeah, my wife will be pissed if I tell her about this.
4Why? It's just more choice, nobody will be forced to buy it. Seems silly to get upset about what other people choose to eat... Wait, she's Italian, checks out.
6
Well, other EU countries already sell insect-based food countries.and I'm not sure to what degree they can completely ignore the EU regulations.
3Permanently Deleted
2Permanently Deleted
-7Just remember that nearly 7 million people died worldwide from covid, so I don't quite understand your use of quotation marks there. It absolutely was a reason to panic, I'm also not sure what your connection is between covid in Italy and cricket flower. Please keep your conspiracy theory bullshit tucked deeply away in your dysfunctional brain because people like you are the primary reason so many lives were upended.
7The fuck are you on about, weirdo
6
I'm still kind of puzzled about why you'd want to use something like this, instead of plant-based ingredients.
Though obviously it doesn't make sense to completely outlaw it, either.
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apparently extremely nutritious and high in protein
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But obviously creepy & disgusting and many people are NOT willing to intentionally eat this.
9Eating insects is normal in many cultures. Calling it obviously creepy and disgusting is imposing your own narrow value system on others. The world is a big and diverse place. If it isn't hurting anyone (well, other than the crickets), why should it matter? Nobody is going to be forced to eat this if they don't want to.
There are so many non Western foods that most westerners aren't into, should they all be banned? And who knows? Maybe adventurous eaters will try it and like it. Sushi used to be viewed as "objectively creepy and disgusting" by many westerners for decades.
6creepy & disgusting is a matter of opinion, not fact, and anyone who isn't willing to eat this is perfectly free to just not.
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I haven’t figured this out either, but my wild guess is the greater protein content over carbs in regular flour. I’m thinking of things like keto meal bars, or something.
5Same would be true for pea protein powder, tho. Maybe cricket powder is actually cheaper than isolated legume protein, but legume protein seems like a much easier sale.
7
I am all for this, eating insects is done in many cultures and a healthy source of nutrition. We westerners may see it as something intimidating at first, because we so squirmish about bugs, but I am honestly curious about the taste.
That being said, I don't know why we need more nutritious flour. We are not lacking protein in our diets. Even vegans and vegetarians easily hit the minimum protein intake by consuming plant based protein....
32It is not only about hitting the limits. it is also about creating the right balance. It is a good way of getting protein intake, w.o. having carbohydrates alongside.
12We are not lacking protein in our diets
Doesn't mean that we can't look for more environmentally friendly protein sources, or cheaper ones, or open up more options to replace the carbs that are badly overrepresented in the average American's diet, or explore new potential flavors, or use this as a supplement for other nutrients it may contain, or any number of other perfectly valid reasons to explore a new food source. More knowledge is better, it lets us make decisions that more closely fit our needs and gives us more flexibility in solving problems.
8We are not lacking protein in our diets.
Go to any fitness community and you will see tons of people trying to get more protein in their diet. This is a niche food, I highly doubt it will appear anywhere in any non specialty products. I don't see any problems with more choice as long as it has been tested to be safe, which this is.
6If there's one thing fitness types are known for it's not chasing trends
1
Everyone here saying how awful this sounds, and I'm just sitting here excited to try a new food. I ate mealworms before and they were pretty good, so why not?
It's certainly not what I'm used to but it's definitely less weird than some common foods we typically eat like cheese (which I fucking love, but if you think about it its weird as shit!)
20Cheese = yummy bacteria poop.
2Ever tried chocolate-covered ants? They're lovely!
1I haven't but it sounds like a winning combination
2Ants with chilli powder is also yum
2
I'll be honest I'm not really giddy at the idea of eating roasted beetles or anything like that, but if they can make it into hot dogs that taste the same as the other ones I really don't care.
1
the ideas that:
no one should have to eat bugs if they don't want to
and
people who want to eat bugs should be able to get bugs easily
aren't mutually exclusive.
14@throws_lemy All far-righters on suicide watch
9This is the best summary I could come up with:
“This is very big news for us,” said Cianni, whose main motive for the business initiative was to provide an alternative, sustainable protein source.
Since 2020, millions of crickets have been raised at the company’s plant in Montecassiano, a town in the central Marche region, where they are heat-treated before being frozen and ground into powder.
The EU approved the sale of insects – namely crickets, locusts and darkling beetle larvae – for human consumption in early 2023, sparking a flurry of proposed regulations from the Italian government, including one aimed at ensuring insects are kept away from traditional dishes such as pasta and pizza.
“It’s fundamental that these flours are not confused with food made in Italy,” said the agriculture minister Francesco Lollobrigida at the time.
However, by the time the regulations became official at the end of last year, the government had relented, instead imposing strict labelling rules, such as clearly stating the product’s origin and the requirement to use Acheta domesticus, the Latin for house cricket, on packets so as to make it a little less startling to the consumer.
“It’s good for the environment because the resources required to breed crickets and the spaces used are really small, and so emissions are almost zero,” said Cianni.
The original article contains 470 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 55%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
8It's all fine as long as it doesn't look like a cricket.
7How many insect parts are allowed per kg of flour? 🤔
7No more than 1kg
16i saw a packet of heinz ketchup that said 148g of tomato per 100g. I guess they evaporate the liquid but I had a good laugh.
10
✌️🍝🦗 Will ask my Italian mum, if we maybe could have some cricket lasagne. Jammi-jammi.
4Maybe some butterfly Farfalle first?
5
Yall are excited for this but I'll stick to wheat flour, thanks.
3Can't wait to try this.
Would go soo well as a traditional Italian Hawaiian pizza.
(/s on the pizza thing, do kinda wanna try it though)
3All good unless you replace Hawaiian with Pineapple in that name!
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Flour basically has insects in it too anyway (which is why supermarkets need to rotate flour every few months on the shelves, despite it being long life). I've tried cricket chips, mealworms and such before, and honestly, you don't even notice.. It's really just crunch
2Yeah, fuck that.
1It's actually planned as food ingridient. But hey, what ever floats your boat.
3
Nice. The legs make great toothpicks.
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1It's not the future we wanted, but it is the future we deserve
-2Dude, eating crickets, and not powdered crickets, but whole crickets, crunchy, carapace and all, is totally normal in many many cultures. I view all the people saying this is objectively bad no differently than people get all pissy about sushi. Don't want it? Fine, that's your preference, but don't put objective value judgements on things that aren't objective at all.
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