I read two very incredible books 1) "Sacred Cow: The Case for (Better) Meat: Why Well-Raised Meat is Good for You and Good for the Planet" by Diana Rodgers and Robb Wolf; and "The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability" by Lierre Keith. Turns out beef is the most intensely nutritious food a human can eat--ounce for ounce. Cows, bison, elk, deer and antelope are one integral part of the ecology that was when Indians shepherded the land. There are many regenerative farmers and ranchers already up and going here in Colorado. Cows get to live a natural cow's life until that one bummer day when they go to the slaughterhouse. The best part of all of this, besides that we humans get great nutrition, is that soil is brought back to life, and then does its job of sequestering carbon from the air.
I'm not concerned about the insect-eating craze (though I am concerned about the pollinators). My reasoning is very simple -- the people pushing the need to eat insects and the fools who are excited to "do their part" by eating insects are the same idiots who are always part of the "current thing." They have an attention span of a gnat (maybe they'll eat those too). This will go the same way as alternative meats, which was a big fad a few years ago, but sales have really slumped now. The same thing will happen with insects. Some people will continue to eat insects even when it is no longer the current thing, but most will happily go back to their former diets.
Aren't windmills killing metric shit-loads of flying insects? I would have to imagine a significant portion are pollinators. I am very concerned about this. This characterization of these troubling trends that are doubtless products of managerial class malfeasance (pesticides killing pollinators, mRNA vaccines killing young healthy people, forest fires caused worsened by poor management, water issues in the SW associated with preferential rates for agriculture etc) as consequences of climate change is... aggravating. What can we do to help out the pollinators? Is there legislation that would be beneficial? Perhaps banning the types of pesticides that are neurotoxic to pollinators?
I am fortunate... our neck of the world seems to still have our pollinators. At my current house, we have a large mimosa which bees and hummingbirds seem to love. At the homestead-to-be, we had a volunteer thistle last year. I saved seeds, just in case it didn't reseed itself. (But it did, many times over.) It was a bee magnet... honey bees, bumble bees, little itty-bitty ones I didn't recognize. And they didn't mind being on the same flower at the same time.
Regarding edible insects, nope. Not me. I'm not even a fan of sea-faring arthropods.
I read two very incredible books 1) "Sacred Cow: The Case for (Better) Meat: Why Well-Raised Meat is Good for You and Good for the Planet" by Diana Rodgers and Robb Wolf; and "The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability" by Lierre Keith. Turns out beef is the most intensely nutritious food a human can eat--ounce for ounce. Cows, bison, elk, deer and antelope are one integral part of the ecology that was when Indians shepherded the land. There are many regenerative farmers and ranchers already up and going here in Colorado. Cows get to live a natural cow's life until that one bummer day when they go to the slaughterhouse. The best part of all of this, besides that we humans get great nutrition, is that soil is brought back to life, and then does its job of sequestering carbon from the air.
I'm not concerned about the insect-eating craze (though I am concerned about the pollinators). My reasoning is very simple -- the people pushing the need to eat insects and the fools who are excited to "do their part" by eating insects are the same idiots who are always part of the "current thing." They have an attention span of a gnat (maybe they'll eat those too). This will go the same way as alternative meats, which was a big fad a few years ago, but sales have really slumped now. The same thing will happen with insects. Some people will continue to eat insects even when it is no longer the current thing, but most will happily go back to their former diets.
Aren't windmills killing metric shit-loads of flying insects? I would have to imagine a significant portion are pollinators. I am very concerned about this. This characterization of these troubling trends that are doubtless products of managerial class malfeasance (pesticides killing pollinators, mRNA vaccines killing young healthy people, forest fires caused worsened by poor management, water issues in the SW associated with preferential rates for agriculture etc) as consequences of climate change is... aggravating. What can we do to help out the pollinators? Is there legislation that would be beneficial? Perhaps banning the types of pesticides that are neurotoxic to pollinators?
I am fortunate... our neck of the world seems to still have our pollinators. At my current house, we have a large mimosa which bees and hummingbirds seem to love. At the homestead-to-be, we had a volunteer thistle last year. I saved seeds, just in case it didn't reseed itself. (But it did, many times over.) It was a bee magnet... honey bees, bumble bees, little itty-bitty ones I didn't recognize. And they didn't mind being on the same flower at the same time.
Regarding edible insects, nope. Not me. I'm not even a fan of sea-faring arthropods.
Here, look at these fancy bugs and what we can do with them (but don't pay attention to the bugs your life actually depends upon...)