The FastDay Forum

I've just started breeding mealworms and crickets, with the intent of eating them. I'm going to blog about it (with recipes) so will put a link up once I get it up and running.

I've just started breeding mealworms and crickets, with the intent of eating them. I'm going to blog about it (with recipes) so will put a link up once I get it up and running.

I will be interested to see them - if I can summon up the courage to look at the photos, but my idea of good cricket is Test Match Special.

Katamac,
Really? No joke? that would be fascinating - Dominic, you wouldn't be tempted by a "Plat de jour" special of crickets a la Test Match?

A lot of British / Irish meat is grass fed anyway, we're less into "feed lots" than the USA though bull beef is more likely to be grain fed in a shed.

Waitrose do pig cheeks and ox cheeks, animals humanely reared (they say), For under a £5er per kg. haven't done the ox cheeks, but the pork casserole was gorgeous - I slowcooked it in cider! Is pork paleo, or is only beef considered paleo?

Yes, cheeks are the best part of both meat and fish! I find the Greek (Med) Paleo more interesting than the Northern European one but I wouldn't follow any of them, to be honest.
I like potatoes too much, LOL!

I think it's a fairly recent thing to be so choosy about cuts of meat, and of course, cultural. My Scottish granny would boil up a big dish of tripe every week, and my English nan made homemade faggots. They both had large families to feed and small purses. I went to live abroad in my twenties and got used to eating every bit of an animal and have always found it hard to understand why most people in this country will quite happily tuck into a steak yet be nauseated by a lot of the other cuts, particularly the offal or certain bits such as the head or trotters,brains or shins for example. How have we become so squeamish? After all, the animal doesn't just wrap its own rump into a piece of clingfilm .There are so many parts of the animal that are wasted, particularly in our western society. I don't eat a lot of meat, but I am quite happy to eat every part of it, but I know I am in the minority in that viewpoint!

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh Izzy!!!! WOAH!!! That looks so delicious!!!

I happily eat offal, tongue, tail, brains, liver but I won't go near ears and tripe! I even eat the intestines and liver and heart and lungs of the lamb.

IMO, it's a matter of what you used to eat as a child. I've been eating all sorts of meat since I was 2-years old so they don't seem weird to me.

And I admit that I try to not buy meat from the supermarket, I want to choose the part of it and tell the butcher how to cut it depending on what I'm planning to do with it.

My vegan and vego family members do eat a good deal of tofu and nuts. So do I. Plus, I mix some replacement protein with ratatouille veges for pasta. I eat meat and seafood when I'm out with friends, but I don't miss it at home. I now collect recipes for spicy cauli and cumin seed with carrot. YUUUUmmmm. I can make egg and scrambled tofu sandwiches these days. My favourite bring a plate for the party piece. So, for me, the Mediterranean life looks more palatable by far. But I do eat lovely soudough bread, not pulpy slushy white sliced. And the Indian flavours jazz up veges more than Mediterranean recipes and often use more lentils and beans. Okay, so, do eat the beans in moderation!

When I tried Paleo several years ago, I promptly gained about 3 lbs. my first week. I was totally disgusted and knew it wasn't for me. Plus I just didn't feel well on it. I do have to limit carbs due to blood sugar issues so I now eat South Beach Diet style - legumes, very limited gluten free grains, small amounts of nuts, limited fresh fruit, lots of lean proteins, reduced fat dairy, olive oil, lots of veggies. I just feel best eating this way, and I'd say it's closest to Mediterannean. Plus I lose weight on it...when I do it!

I very much think that if you're killing an animal, use all of it. So yes, eat everything you can, make bone broths out of the bones, use the skin. I find it a bit bizarre tbh that people will eat one bit of dead animal (eg a muscle along the back bone or rump), but not another (eg a muscle that beats blood around the animal or the stomach). It's all just dead animal, and I can understand that texture plays a part (eg my hubby isn't a fan of tripe but 100% because of the texture rather than which bit of the animal it's from.)

But then I'm about to experiment with eating insects, which although popular in a number of places, is considered bizarre in our culture, so maybe I should shut up

Re the crickets: I am glad you are doing this research KataMac and even gladder that I am not...

To get back to the OP, could it be significant that all 29 subjects in the first (Swedish 2010) trial - which found that the 'East African' Paleo diet was more satisfying than the Mediterranean - were male? Why all hunters and no gatherers?

The tone of that research article is 'pro-Paleo'. Interesting that 3 further subjects were excluded because of non-willingness to complete the trial - all from the Paleo group. Maybe people on the Paleo diet ate less because it was just too disgusting? (Despite not involving eating insects, which might well have been part of a real East African Paleo diet.)

Moving on, the paper looks at why the Paleo diet was more satiating and finds a few possibilities supported by the data:

1. the significantly lower carbohydrate intake in both absolute and relative terms, paired with the greater relative protein intake, could cause the greater satiating capacity of the Paleolithic diet.
2. the significantly lower salt intake in the Paleolithic group
3. bread and milk products are often considered palatable, the much higher intake of these food items in the Mediterranean group could block satiety signals
4. there was a correlation between the Satiety Quotient for energy and intake of saturated fatty acids
5. the strongest correlation between relative change in leptin and dietary variables was with intake of cereals excluding rice

So any views about which might be the worst culprits for making us eat more? Salt, cereals, bread, milk, or carbs in general?

Lower protein is likely to result in eating more in my opinion. I can't see anyone eating 2000 calories of steak in a hurry but fatty carbs will do that easily.

So, Phil, you haven't met my dad then...

true, but 1 kg of sirloin ??