The key difference is size. There's a lot more meat in your typical prawn, and this allows you to peal and prep it in a way that distances you from its natural appearance. There's less meat inside the cricket, so you pretty much have to eat it whole, shell and all. The resulting texture is less meaty and more mealy/crunchy.
In my experience eating crickets, I've always been aware that I'm eating crickets. There is no fantastic way to mitigate the texture and the mouthfeel, shy of grinding up the crickets into a powder and reconstituting them in some other form.
(The texture doesn't bug me per se, but it sure does seem to bug a lot of people who've tried crickets. No pun intended.)
An approach to making it more tractable to meet food needs is to integrate it back into our urban/suburban environments and take advantage of advanced indoor farming which can be carefully monitored and tended by humans or robots, which can dramatically reduce resource usage for agriculture and greatly improve land use.
https://bioteaching.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/gigantism-in-in...
Also: Jurassic Park is BS for the same reason. The T Rex would not function in earth's current atmosphere -- at least not without tampering with their physiology and/or some kind of extra support system.
We were obviously very interested in the study! It turns out that the paper missed some crucial factors that make insects a sustainable, efficient protein source.
I guest-wrote this post with some details; do take a look if you're interested.
For one thing you can go more 3D with crickets, whereas with chickens you would have to build additional levels if you wanted to 'stack' them.
Also, many people care about the welfare of the animals they eat, such as making sure they have space to roam and live some kind of life before they are slaughtered. I doubt anyone will care if you cram crickets in so tight they can barely move. So at least in terms of space, I imagine you're going to need much less land for a cricket farm.
[1]: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
http://www.care2.com/causes/cow-versus-chicken-the-true-carb...
Pun intended??
Every food has protein in it. Bananas have protein. Tomatoes have protein. All plant foods have a complete amino acid profile fit for human consumption. In fact, protein is the easiest macronutrient to get enough of, provided caloric needs are being met. So it's perplexing why eating insects is billed as a 'sustainable source of protein'. Is it more sustainable than say, rice or potatoes?
That's a really weird phrase. I guess suggestions that a protein complete diet is easier when eating meat are also a bit overwrought, but it's possible to eat plants and end up not getting all essential amino acids which is usually what is meant when "complete" is mentioned together with protein.
No, that isn't possible. You could eat nothing but potatoes, or even mangoes, and still get enough protein. There isn't a single whole plant food which is completely lacking in any essential amino acid. How could it? Plants can't "hunt" and "eat" other plants - they must synthesize all amino acids themselves. The "complete protein" myth is one which has been debunked for decades, yet somehow refuses to die.
