Forgive my ignorance here, but doesn’t the morality of this depend to some degree on what living things currently being fed to pigs and chickens would be replaced or supplemented by insects?
I’m not a UK resident and I know shit about its pig and chicken farming practices, but from what little I could learn, pigs and chicken are currently fed a lot of fishmeal and soy. Fishmeal carries similar moral issues as insects and soy carries the burden of Amazon deforestation and the killing of countless wild animals. Dumb question but how do you know you’re reducing potential suffering by continuing to feed pigs and chickens the way they’re fed now?
I see. So it kind of depends on the suffering capacity per unit of organism being similar across all units capable of suffering that are involved in feeding pigs and chickens, largely independent of the unit’s apparent complexity. And so I guess the numbers then don’t suggest that the units of all life lost (both present and future) from Amazon deforestation and fishmeal consumption due to feed-related soy farming compare to the potential life lost from feeding insects to pigs and chickens. Thanks for explaining.
No not specifically the proportions. I asked it what things were currently fed to pigs and chickens in the UK and it listed soy and fishmeal as components of their diet, along with other things like wheat, animal fat, etc.
> you can respond without being a UK citizen. If you’re worried about imposing your correct values on the incorrect values of another culture.
I'd say about half the world is justified in imposing its will on Britain for a change :)
Now give me my emoji 🔫
⛸️
ₙ i c e
Oh my goodness “Bugs” is one of my recent favorites. So happy you’re sharing it! Also I found a spider in my room today and felt a little less lonely.
Always happy to meddle in the affairs of other countries on behalf of insect-kind🫡🦗
Below a certain temperature crickets start to "hibernate." Isn't death by freezing pretty much the best death a cricket would have in the wild?
My fallible impression is that there’s no good evidence, wrt insects, that freezing is less painful (prior to hibernation) than other methods of slaughter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_of_farmed_insects#:~:text=While%20freezing%20is%20sometimes%20said,by%20another%20form%20of%20anesthesia.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jbR9XrZbsqCsnR3vy/thoughts-on-the-welfare-of-farmed-insects
Forgive my ignorance here, but doesn’t the morality of this depend to some degree on what living things currently being fed to pigs and chickens would be replaced or supplemented by insects?
I’m not a UK resident and I know shit about its pig and chicken farming practices, but from what little I could learn, pigs and chicken are currently fed a lot of fishmeal and soy. Fishmeal carries similar moral issues as insects and soy carries the burden of Amazon deforestation and the killing of countless wild animals. Dumb question but how do you know you’re reducing potential suffering by continuing to feed pigs and chickens the way they’re fed now?
Good question. You can’t know for sure, but if insects are sentient, given their size, the sheer number of insects we’d have to cull for per gram of protein makes it likely that insect protein is way worse than fishmeal or soymeal welfare-wise. (WRT fish meal, which is the more concerning if the two, the same sorts of skeptical worries about insect pain carry over to fish, such that if fish feel pain, odds are good that many insects do as well — and the number of fish used annually for fish meal are in the billions, not the trillions https://www.ciwf.org.uk/media/press-releases-statements/2024/02/new-fishcount-study-sheds-light-on-the-staggering-numbers-of-wild-fishes-caught-annually#:~:text=shockingly%2C%20around%20half%20of%20all,farmed%20animals%20rather%20than%20people).
I see. So it kind of depends on the suffering capacity per unit of organism being similar across all units capable of suffering that are involved in feeding pigs and chickens, largely independent of the unit’s apparent complexity. And so I guess the numbers then don’t suggest that the units of all life lost (both present and future) from Amazon deforestation and fishmeal consumption due to feed-related soy farming compare to the potential life lost from feeding insects to pigs and chickens. Thanks for explaining.
Update: Dustin Crummett just let me know that actually, pigs and chickens are basically only fed soy, not fishmeal
Okay. Just so you know, the UK Voters for Animals GPT you provided, along with GPT in general, suggest otherwise for what that’s worth.
About the proportion of fishmeal to soymeal fed to pigs and chickens?
No not specifically the proportions. I asked it what things were currently fed to pigs and chickens in the UK and it listed soy and fishmeal as components of their diet, along with other things like wheat, animal fat, etc.
Done