
Cockroach farms multiplying in China - darkchyld
http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-c1-china-cockroach-20131015-dto,2669,4433405.htmlstory
======
spodek
Capitalism is stronger than customs.

If growing them feeds people efficiently, we'll see it here soon enough.

Potatoes didn't exist outside the Americas until after 1492. Then many
cultures viewed them as lowly and not worth eating. But you can feed more
people per area than any other food and they grow in more types of land than
many other edible plants. Cultures would reject them until a famine struck.
Then the ruler would eat them out of necessity. Then everyone would eat them.
Now potatoes are in more cuisines of the world than any other food.

If cockroaches are efficient, I would expect a few shocks in some commodity
markets to put them on a few cultures' dinner plates, then to spread. Like
roaches, if you'll pardon the pun.

~~~
Amadou
_Cultures would reject them until a famine struck. Then the ruler would eat
them out of necessity._

It is incredibly rare for the "rulers" to have their personal food supply
impacted by a famine.

Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science for (I'm vastly over-
simplifying) research that indicates only dictatorships have famines because
the rulers are insulated from the effects and so have little motivation to fix
the systemic problems that cause famines. The "let them eat cake" syndrome
(although that quote itself is historically misleading).

The premise is that in a democracy the rulers still eat well, but there are
other mechanisms for them to share in the suffering of famine so it never gets
to that point.

[http://www.wright.edu/~tdung/sen.htm](http://www.wright.edu/~tdung/sen.htm)

~~~
asgard1024
Actually, it may be true for other areas as well, I thought about this few
days ago in the context of free market and choice.

Maybe free market is harmful for society in the sense that market segmentation
creates a choice between high and low quality based on price, and this choice
doesn't force people who can afford the more expensive solution to make a fix
for everybody.

There is lot of anecdotal evidence about this. For example, there was article
about school system in Finland, which is pretty much egalitarian. Still, the
quality is great as a side effect probably because if someone improves the
system, they improve it for everybody.

Similar things could be said about healthcare system. In fact, probably every
successful government-run system is based on belief of participants that it
_should_ be egalitarian (and yes, they do exist).

We have negative examples of this as well. Most consumer product have awfully
low quality, lower than what we could actually manufacture. The standard
response to this is "you have a choice" and indeed, the knowledgeable people
can buy quality for much higher price. But in doing so, they won't improve
quality for those clueless, leaving them to buy lemons.

Interestingly, even the knowledgeable group is then affected. They have to pay
higher price, because they get less market power, because they chose not to
extend this power by leaving others to bad choice.

~~~
joshuahedlund
There are choices between high and low quality based on price, but you're
ignoring the effect of changes over time. As Hayek and others have explained,
typically something new and experimental will only be available to the rich
because it will initially be expensively produced in low quantities, but as it
catches on innovation brings the price down to the masses. There are dozens of
"low-quality" goods (relative to today's "high-quality" versions) enjoyed by
the poor today that would have been considered "high-quality" relative to the
versions of those same products enjoyed only by the rich a few decades ago
(ex. cell phones, refrigerators, etc). Although these trends may be more
easily seen in products than in services/public goods like education.

~~~
asgard1024
That misses the point. Of course a refrigerator from today has more
functionality built to it than refrigerator from 50 years ago. Of course we
can build it much cheaper. The question, do we want to?

There is also Akerlof, who also won the "Nobel Prize". When people cannot
recognize quality, they cannot buy it. Sure, every fool can compare
"features". So when the producer is faced with a choice, build it 10% cheaper
for half the quality, what do you think he is going to do? Most people won't
know until it breaks.

It's also win for the producer. He can make two lines - one "consumer" line
with half the quality, and the other "professional" line with the right
quality, but two times as expensive. That's how modern market segmentation
works.

------
pkfrank
I'm more excited by cricket farming for protein flour (here in the US).

There's a Brooklyn company called Exo (Exo.co) which is doing just that after
a kickstarter campaign + media blitz. Cricket flour is super high in protein,
and also very sustainable. Could see it becoming the next acai, chia seed,
quinoa, etc.

~~~
rob05c
I don't know how common my sentiment is, but I'd be far more inclined to eat
crickets than cockroaches. I psychologically associate roaches with disease.
Crickets are just another insect.

I realize this is irrational, and that fauna which feed on garbage like rats
and roaches can be farm-raised in sanitary conditions. I'm still not going to
eat a roach.

~~~
31reasons
I don't know how common my sentiment is, but I would stay the hell away from
anything related to insects for purely psychological reasons.

~~~
Amadou
Until maybe a decade ago, the most common source of red food dye was ground up
cochineal bugs which look like ticks. Even today, if the food claims to be
made from all natural ingredients, any red coloring is bugs rather than
something from a lab.

[http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/bugjuice.asp](http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/bugjuice.asp)

~~~
AlisdairO
> To prepare carmine, the powdered scale insect bodies are boiled in ammonia
> or a sodium carbonate solution, the insoluble matter is removed by
> filtering, and alum is added to the clear salt solution of carminic acid to
> precipitate the red aluminium salt, called "carmine lake" or "crimson lake."

Seems a stretch of the word 'natural' to me :-)

------
thaumasiotes
> "With cockroaches, you can invest 20 yuan and get back 150 yuan," or $3.25
> for a return of $11.

?????????

As I see it, 150元 is seven and a half times as much as 20元. I didn't use any
exchange rate of any sort to compute that.

Seven and a half times $3.25 is $24.375 . Using the most charitable
interpretation I can think of, that's a return of $21.12 on an investment of
$3.25, but put in the same terms as the original quote, I'd call it investing
$3.25 and getting back $24.38. What happened there?

~~~
guerrilla
Yes, you seem to be correct. Good catch. According to a google for "150 CNY in
USD", "150 Chinese Yuan equals 24.59 US Dollar"

~~~
thaumasiotes
Well sure, but even if 150 chinese yuan were equal to 11 USD, turning 20 yuan
into 150 yuan wouldn't be like turning $3.25 into $11, it would be like
turning $3.25 into $24.375. It might be metaphysically _more_ like turning
$1.47 into $11, but absolute quantities aren't really at issue when you're
talking about return rates (I'm assuming the cockroach farm, which by
implication earns in the tens of thousands of USD per year, can scale up
beyond a return of 150 yuan). It would have been easier and less of a gaffe
for the reporter to say "you can invest 20 yuan and get back 150 yuan, or $20
for a return of $150". Why did they bother to print a conversion at all?

~~~
corin_
There is some logic in the conversion as it helps show scale - if you run a
lemonade stand it may be true to say you can invest $10 and profit $20, but
not true that you could invest $1m and profit $2m, whereas in a car
manufacturing business you might be able to invest $Xm and profit $2Xm, but
investing $10 is unlikely to give you any return. These two scenarios can't
both be explained as "you can invest 1 and get 2 back".

That said, a single quote, even with conversion, doesn't help much here - if a
reader wanted to start a farm now it doesn't give them any idea of whether 20
yuan is the minimum or the maximum investment (I presume it's below the
minimum anyway).

~~~
thaumasiotes
The article already indicates (in USD figures) that a cockroach farm generates
in the low tens of thousands of USD per year.

------
clarkdave
I set up a mini cockroach farm to feed my lizard (a bearded dragon). They're
easy to look after, very low maintenance, never bite and don't make much
noise. I can't say I've ever wanted to eat one, but I can see why they'd be an
excellent creature to farm if people are willing.

~~~
giardini
They _will_ bite! Try catching one that doesn't want to be caught.

------
dwaltrip
I find it interesting how blatantly those quoted in the article talk about the
pursuit of wealth. One of the local Chinese governments even has an award for
"expert in getting wealthy"! I guess it isn't as reprehensible coming from a
country with so many rural poor, but I still find it depressing.

~~~
ekianjo
Not all countries/people feel bad about getting rich. :) In China on every new
Year you wish each other "prosperity" and this partly linked to making it big,
too.

~~~
Amadou
On the other hand, I new a girl who came over on a post-Tienanmen visa (they
let practically anyone from China in to the US for a while after that
incident). She was from a rural town, yet she told me they had a saying about
Shanghainese (apparently there is a lot of regional jingoism there). The
saying translated roughly as "You can't get that rich without doing something
bad."

~~~
ekianjo
Maybe. I'm not saying that the attitude I described is universal, but I feel
like in China you get a certain respect for being successful.

I feel it used to be the same in the US at some point in time. Getting rich
was seen as a reward since you provided a good solution to consumers and
therefore you could gain from the overall value you provided to society.

On HN, I'm not sure what is the trend, since you see people saying that
"profit is evil" and stuff in that line of thought, as well as folks cheering
for SpaceX, Tesla Motors' CEO Elon Musk who is getting very rich through the
process of what he does - and it does not seem to bother many people in these
kind of situations.

~~~
yodsanklai
"I feel it used to be the same in the US at some point in time."

It's interesting you say that because European right wingers always depict the
US as a paradise where people can be wealthy (which they equate to successful)
and respected for it.

"On HN, I'm not sure what is the trend, since you see people saying that
"profit is evil" and stuff in that line of thought, as well as folks cheering
for SpaceX, Tesla Motors' CEO Elon Musk"

I don't see any contradiction. Most people feel one should be rewarded based
on their contribution to society, and have respect and admiration for skilled
and ambitious persons.

What is usually debated is: how much should be the reward, and how to assess
everyone's contribution.

~~~
ekianjo
_It 's interesting you say that because European right wingers always depict
the US as a paradise where people can be wealthy (which they equate to
successful) and respected for it._

What's interesting about it? And I have no idea why you start putting politics
inside here - that was not the point. You are right about one thing, in Europe
people are despised if they have money, no matter if they deserved it or not.

 _What is usually debated is: how much should be the reward, and how to assess
everyone 's contribution._

Vote with your wallet/dollars. What else is there to measure ? Honestly I
don't see who would be in position to decide "what should be the reward" or
these kind of things. That's why we have market systems, to avoid stupid
solutions to this kind of issue.

------
shaneofalltrad
I read Hacker News on a daily now and never in my life thought a topic from my
previous daily reads (Gecko and Reptile forums) would ever make it here! I
once bred roaches for reptile food and the lizards did prefer them over
anything else, so I would guess they are tasty!

~~~
userulluipeste
"I read Hacker News on a daily now and never in my life thought a topic from
my previous daily reads (Gecko and Reptile forums) would ever make it here!"

But such a topic did make it here before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5750173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5750173)

------
mmagin
I see loads of those outside at night in warm weather here. Maybe there's some
kind of reverse-aliexpress I can use to sell them? :)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Just catch them and market yourself as "keeping the manufacturing on the U.S.
soil"[0] ;).

[0] - assuming you currently live in US, not in Malaysia :).

------
mathattack
_He expressed disapproval that visiting journalists refused to sample the
roaches.

On saying goodbye at the end of the day, he added a final rejoinder.

"You will regret your whole life not trying them."_

Whenever I travel, I do my best to eat like a local. In my sheltered life, I
never ate sushi until I first visited Japan. There I had sushi so fresh it was
still moving. I ate Balut [1] when someone handed me an egg in Manila. But I
think my cultural adventure would have stopped at the same spot as the
aforementioned journalists.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_\(egg\))

------
gwern
A word of advice if you're trying out cockroaches/crickets/cicadas for
yourself: do something about the shell if it isn't very soft. During the most
recent cicada emergence in my area, I caught a bunch and cooked them up as
spaghetti (
[http://www.gwern.net/Notes#cicadas](http://www.gwern.net/Notes#cicadas) );
unfortunately, I didn't do anything about their shells, which were pretty
tough toward the end of the emergence, and my dinner was less pleasant than I
hoped.

------
blisterpeanuts
My wife and I read a book a few years ago: "Man Eating Bugs", a travelogue of
insect cuisine in many different lands.

It was quite fascinating. Children in Mexico would pick up a stink bug and eat
it raw, a sour-crunchy snack. In Southeast Asia there's a large beetle about
the size of a Snickers bar that in fact tastes like a Snickers bar. In Africa
some folks like to eat large termites, a high protein food source. In
Australia, there's a type of grub that lives in the roots of certain bushes
that aborigines will cut open and eat. In Japan there are some "interesting"
dishes.

I've tried grasshoppers, sold in tiny packets, salted and spiced to the point
where you only taste the spice and salt. Bear Ghrylls demonstrated eating ants
as a survival technique (remove the head first).

Insects are superior to meat in many ways--low fat, high quality protein and
other nutrients, low on the food chain so they contain fewer toxins which tend
to accumulate in herbivores and even more in carnivores.

You can harvest grasshoppers in the wild using nets. Just be careful that they
haven't been chewing on poison ivy or other toxic plants which may do you
harm.

I've long had it in mind to start an insect food business and this article was
rather inspiring. This guy just started a cockroach farm and is making money.

It may sound disgusting to us squeamish Westerners, yet think about the notion
of eating a pig or a cow, higher mammals which are fairly intelligent,
creatures who exhibit emotions, who dream, who are evolutionarily our second
cousins when compared to insects.

Just don't eat dragonflies (a popular skewered dish in a part of Indonesia).
They keep down the mosquito population.

~~~
willismichael
When people react with disgust to the idea of insect-based cuisine, I ask if
they eat shrimp. They're not entirely different, both being arthropods.

------
devx
Wasn't lobster used to be called the "cockroach of the sea"?

If they change their names and brand them as something else, they could
probably sell very well as expensive food, too.

------
Dirlewanger
Are they good? What's the standard, throw a bunch of dried ones into a wok
with sesame oil and they're ready to go?

------
taigeair
woah it works for regrowing hair?

~~~
vincie
And of course it cures cancer, diabetes, bad-breath and increases your
virility and success with the ladies. They haven't tried it yet, but it should
also increase your mileage if you put them in your gas tank.

~~~
taigeair
You say that but man eastern medicine is powerful stuff!!

~~~
gboudrias
I'd be more scared of the undocumented side effects than of losing my hair.

~~~
ekianjo
Well I'm not sure what you should be scared of really. The FDA-approved
medicines where some so-called reputable companies have lied to the
authorities about the fruits of their research (and hidden the potential side
effects), of the chinese medicine stuff.

There's not so much you can trust anymore out there when it comes to drugs.

~~~
wuschel
It is sad to see that people have such a bad attitude towards the
pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Many of my friends work in that
sector, and I assure you that their motivation and interest in the their work
comes in part from helping people.

Give me one industial sector where greed - nature of man - is not a problem.

~~~
ekianjo
I happen to know that sector very well (among others) and it has always struck
me how dirty it has always been. Paying doctors to go to the tropical islands
for so called "scientific conferences", giving kickbacks vs the number of
subscriptions for your drug, manipulating the studies results to make them
look better than they actually are, cherry picking the results to get an
approval... just list any of the worst practices ever and you can be sure the
pharma industry has it. And you get random news here and there on how X big
company did this or that (recently Pfizer caught red handed in Japan) but
still business continues as usual.

The motivation of your friends may be noble, but that's probably because they
don't work in the functions which directly relate to these activities. Just
open your eyes (and the news).

~~~
wuschel
> [..] tropical islands [..] manipulating the studies results [..]

I did not want to argue with you that there is no dirty business in
pharmaceuticals or chemistry. All I am saying is that dirty tricks and evil
strategies are found throughout the industry, and not only in the medical
sector. It is just in the medical sector that one sees the most dramatic
consequences.

Go to car development, pre-emptive war, OS software, taxi drivers, banks, and
I am sure you will find some good examples of low humans can fall.

~~~
ekianjo
The issue with the Pharma industry is that in most countries, the
consumer/patient is NOT the one who pays directly for the drug. You have
insurance systems, social security groups and so on who are in charge of
paying most of the expenses, and on the other side, doctors who are the only
ones in charge of providing the drug. So, the pharma industry is very much
prone to corrupt practices because they do not have to sell directly to
patients and can control who delivers the drug to who in the end. Therefore
they will not see any hurt in sales no matter what they are found doing
(except for cases where they have hidden deleterious health effects, which is
really the worst practice of all).

In the car industry, if you make a crappy car, people will notice it and will
stop trusting your brand. In pharmaceuticals, you will never see that. I even
wonder how companies like that are allowed to keep operating when they are
found blatantly lying about serious health consequences. They should be put
out of business.

~~~
wuschel
> .. patient is NOT the one who pays directly for the drug ..

Ok, I can accept this argument. Basically, there is an incentive to trick the
system. Unfortunatly, I am not a doctor, and as such I do not have the
experience to judge the effectiveness of various medical treatments and give
an example how well or bad the pharmaceutical industry is really treating us.

What is the the real gain of our health risk insurance systems? I know enough
people who are dependent on daily medication of strong systemic substances,
and they can live a life without too much suffering while not worrying that
this flow of medicine might stop because their bank account is empty. In some
way, society has to step in when individuals - even in large amount - fail to
live within the system.

Having said that, how would it be possible to improve this status quo?

------
squozzer
Grunka Lunka Dunkity Dingredient, you should not ask about the secret
ingredient.

