Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Are crickets the future of food?
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works
- 0:04Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh W.
- 0:15Speaker 1: Chuck Clark. There's Charles Malcolm Bryant, and there's Jerry the
- 0:22Speaker 1: whiz Roll. And it sounds like an Aaron Cooper poster
- 0:25Speaker 1: gone bad. Yeah already. Yeah, we'll have like the swirling
- 0:29Speaker 1: face like the weird people in Jacob's Ladder. It's funny.
- 0:32Speaker 1: We had a office visitor a couple of weeks ago
- 0:35Speaker 1: and I don't think you were here, and the in fact,
- 0:36Speaker 1: I know you weren't here because you would have been
- 0:38Speaker 1: in here, but there was. There's our great step Brothers,
- 0:42Speaker 1: you know the movie Step Brothers. For those of you
- 0:44Speaker 1: out here out there, there's a promo of John c
- 0:48Speaker 1: Riley and Will Ferrell with as like with an Olan
- 0:51Speaker 1: Mills type U you know post photograph and Aaron Cooper
- 0:56Speaker 1: are our buddy from Kansas who does our great photoshop stuff.
- 1:00Speaker 1: Uh made us into I was John c Rally and
- 1:03Speaker 1: your Will Ferrell and the guy came in and I
- 1:06Speaker 1: was looking around and I was like, oh man, these
- 1:07Speaker 1: are great, and you know, look at that, you know
- 1:10Speaker 1: that looks like I don't know, it looks like it
- 1:11Speaker 1: could be like something like the movie step Brother or something. Said, Oh,
- 1:17Speaker 1: that's exactly what it is. I tried to make him
- 1:20Speaker 1: not feel bad. That was nice of you. That was
- 1:22Speaker 1: very gracious of you as a host. Yeah, Like he
- 1:25Speaker 1: didn't quite zone in on all of them were us.
- 1:30Speaker 1: He should have like clapped loudly beside his ear. Uh man,
- 1:35Speaker 1: I had a little scary thing today. What happened? If
- 1:39Speaker 1: I may, this is kind of part p s A.
- 1:41Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with cricket farming. But um,
- 1:45Speaker 1: we're getting our our basement water proofed because for thirteen
- 1:50Speaker 1: years it's been leaking water like really bad, so much
- 1:54Speaker 1: so that we have mold now oh yeah, black mold. Yes,
- 1:57Speaker 1: And we're also getting mold remediation and done at the
- 2:00Speaker 1: same time. So needless to say, that's a fun, fun
- 2:03Speaker 1: way to spend a lot of money. Um, but I
- 2:06Speaker 1: come home today and my carbon monoxide alarm is going
- 2:12Speaker 1: off because these yahoo's are using a gas powered concrete
- 2:16Speaker 1: saw in our basement. No, and it's like full on saying,
- 2:21Speaker 1: you know, get out of the house, and my animals
- 2:24Speaker 1: are in there, so like, and I just happened to
- 2:27Speaker 1: go home after I went to a coffee shop to
- 2:29Speaker 1: study because I needed to grab something. But like, I
- 2:33Speaker 1: literally could have come home to dead animals man and
- 2:37Speaker 1: dead workman. Yeah those guys too. Wow, I'll bet they're
- 2:42Speaker 1: not the sharpest text in the box. Anyway. It was weird, man,
- 2:45Speaker 1: And they were down there. I mean, not only did
- 2:47Speaker 1: they not have on so much as a dust mask
- 2:49Speaker 1: for the for the gas, but like concrete dust is
- 2:52Speaker 1: really dangerous too. They're like, I don't care. I've got
- 2:54Speaker 1: Obama care. It was so weird, man, and just it
- 2:58Speaker 1: freaked me out to the point where Emily she wanted
- 3:00Speaker 1: to like fire the guy. Uh he wasn't even there,
- 3:03Speaker 1: like the you know, the foreman or the company. Yeah,
- 3:07Speaker 1: and she wanted to be like, man, if he doesn't
- 3:09Speaker 1: understand that this is dangerous, And he said, you know,
- 3:12Speaker 1: open up your windows, it'll be clear in fifteen minutes.
- 3:15Speaker 1: And it took two hours for that alarm to stop
- 3:17Speaker 1: going on. Oh my gosh, Wow, that is really scary.
- 3:20Speaker 1: It was really bad, man. I was out on my
- 3:22Speaker 1: deck basically for the rest of the morning until I
- 3:25Speaker 1: came in with my dogs and my cat in a crate. Man,
- 3:29Speaker 1: that's like how some people commit suicide. I know, you know, yeah,
- 3:34Speaker 1: and these guys are just doing it grattis for you. Yeah,
- 3:37Speaker 1: it was, uh yeah, anyway, so I'm slightly shaken. Yeah,
- 3:42Speaker 1: I'll bet. I'm glad you made it. Man. You look good.
- 3:45Speaker 1: You look okay, thank you. You look healthy. Your pallor
- 3:48Speaker 1: isn't gaunt. I think you're You're okay. I just gotta
- 3:53Speaker 1: calm down here. That the sound of the crickets on
- 3:55Speaker 1: our miniature cricket farm here for soothing me. At least
- 3:58Speaker 1: I know they'd put me to sleep. I'm glad we
- 4:01Speaker 1: set that up. That was pretty good. That was one
- 4:04Speaker 1: of our better segways. Sadly enough. Thanks. Um. Yeah, we
- 4:08Speaker 1: are talking crickets, aren't we. Yeah, we covered into mafaji A.
- 4:11Speaker 1: Meant to look up when, but it was. It seems
- 4:14Speaker 1: like a long time ago, right, And that's eating bugs
- 4:18Speaker 1: and insects. But this is focusing specifically on crickets because
- 4:23Speaker 1: by all accounts, they seem like sort of the our
- 4:27Speaker 1: best bet at trying to get something like this going
- 4:30Speaker 1: in America for real. Yeah, they're I mean, they're pretty
- 4:33Speaker 1: easy to raise. Uh, they don't require much space. You
- 4:37Speaker 1: can set up your own cricket farm at home. Um.
- 4:42Speaker 1: And really we should say the point of all this,
- 4:44Speaker 1: the whole reason anybody would want people to start raising
- 4:47Speaker 1: crickets at home is because the um, well, the the
- 4:52Speaker 1: earth is about to collapse and our food supply is
- 4:58Speaker 1: in in real danger. Right. So I've got some stats
- 5:01Speaker 1: for you, chuck. So, meat consumption per capita has um
- 5:08Speaker 1: increased into the developed world. Actually it's doubled in the
- 5:12Speaker 1: last thirty years, and that's thanks in no small part
- 5:15Speaker 1: to the rise of the brick countries Brazil, Russia, India,
- 5:19Speaker 1: and China, who have huge, massive populations. As they entered
- 5:24Speaker 1: capitalist um the capitalist global economy um, have generally become enriched,
- 5:31Speaker 1: and the more money they have, the more meat civilization
- 5:35Speaker 1: tends to consume, at least these days. Right. So that
- 5:38Speaker 1: doesn't seem bad in and of itself until you look
- 5:40Speaker 1: into what kind of resources it takes to actually raise meat.
- 5:43Speaker 1: So you're ready for this one, I don't know. I'm
- 5:47Speaker 1: afraid to produce one pound of meat that's a half
- 5:53Speaker 1: a kilo basically of meat beef. Sorry, yeah, um, it
- 5:59Speaker 1: requires about four hundred gallons of water. I've heard stuff
- 6:03Speaker 1: like that before, which is like absolutely nuts, even when
- 6:06Speaker 1: you consider that Not only are you watering the cow,
- 6:09Speaker 1: you're also watering, you know that the crops that you
- 6:13Speaker 1: feed to the cow, So there's double water consumption. But
- 6:16Speaker 1: one of the problem, one of the reasons cattle beef
- 6:19Speaker 1: requires so much um water is because you only consume
- 6:25Speaker 1: of the cow. So the water is going to sustain
- 6:29Speaker 1: parts of the cow you're not even eating, right, So
- 6:31Speaker 1: there's a lot of wasted water, even if your water
- 6:34Speaker 1: delivery system is efficient, right, that's just water. Fifty one
- 6:40Speaker 1: of the greenhouse gases that are admitted on planet Earth
- 6:44Speaker 1: come from animal agriculture and um. One third of the
- 6:52Speaker 1: world's adequate or high quality crop land has been lost
- 6:56Speaker 1: to erosion or pollution in the last forty years. And
- 6:59Speaker 1: then that's a huge problem, whether we are all vegetarians
- 7:02Speaker 1: or not, because we're talking crop land, but we use
- 7:06Speaker 1: way more crop land to feed our livestock than we
- 7:09Speaker 1: do to feed ourselves. Right, Something like fifty six million
- 7:13Speaker 1: acres of land are used to grow crops in the
- 7:16Speaker 1: United States to feed animals. Four million are used to
- 7:20Speaker 1: grow crops for human consumption. So there's a lot, a
- 7:25Speaker 1: lot of resources that are used up just from meat
- 7:29Speaker 1: based diets, right, A lot of people say, well, just
- 7:32Speaker 1: go to plant based diets, and other people say you
- 7:35Speaker 1: can't get enough protein from plant based diets, which apparently
- 7:38Speaker 1: is not true from from what I'm seeing. Um, other
- 7:42Speaker 1: people are saying, fine, you want some protein, I got
- 7:44Speaker 1: something for you, and it's crickets. Yeah, I'm kind of
- 7:49Speaker 1: a I'm not surprised, but it goes to show you
- 7:51Speaker 1: the population boom. If meat consumption is increased that much
- 7:56Speaker 1: in the face of probably more vegetarianism and v aganism
- 8:00Speaker 1: then ever before too. You know, well, that's kind of heartening,
- 8:03Speaker 1: like if if there does seem to be if I
- 8:06Speaker 1: guess if if societies follow, Yeah, like we should. I mean,
- 8:10Speaker 1: we've been dancing around doing episodes on vegetarianism and veganism
- 8:14Speaker 1: for a while, so we should probably tackle that at
- 8:16Speaker 1: some point. I'm kind of curious about the history because
- 8:21Speaker 1: it seems like in the like probably since the onset
- 8:25Speaker 1: of America until uh and then I'm just I'm talking
- 8:29Speaker 1: off the top of my head here, but until probably
- 8:32Speaker 1: the nineties, it seems like everybody was just like meat, meat, meat, meat, meat. Well,
- 8:38Speaker 1: there's a I mean, it's definitely associated with wealth, right,
- 8:42Speaker 1: if you can afford to eat a nice steak kind
- 8:45Speaker 1: of indicates you have a certain amount of status in
- 8:47Speaker 1: your society, right, well, like the fifties, it seems like
- 8:50Speaker 1: they would eat steak for lunch, right And I can't
- 8:52Speaker 1: imagine like a steak for lunch. That seems so indulgent. Yeah,
- 8:57Speaker 1: I think it is, you know, yeah, like, yeah, just
- 9:00Speaker 1: give me, give me the twenty ounce ribby for lunch.
- 9:03Speaker 1: It's just I don't know, I can't imagine that. But
- 9:06Speaker 1: in three martinis. I don't argue with that part. That
- 9:11Speaker 1: is pretty indulgent. Three martinis in a twenty ounce by
- 9:14Speaker 1: four lunch. I mean that was don Draper, you know. Yeah,
- 9:17Speaker 1: I never saw that show. I know, I never saw it.
- 9:20Speaker 1: It's it's available. Where is it out there? Really? I
- 9:26Speaker 1: thought they erased it all. Yeah they did. They said
- 9:29Speaker 1: that's it, it's done. Didn't he go become a lumberjack
- 9:33Speaker 1: in at the end? No he did? Okay, oh that's
- 9:38Speaker 1: texting uh oh man. And then we talked about the
- 9:41Speaker 1: ending of that show. Greg, I actually never saw the
- 9:44Speaker 1: end of that one. You just told me about it. Yeah,
- 9:47Speaker 1: I think you stild it to yourself just to watch
- 9:49Speaker 1: the finale. Um. So this dude Kevin, Uh, how would
- 9:54Speaker 1: you pronounce that b B A C H, which is fine,
- 9:59Speaker 1: that's clearly Bach and h U b R. You just
- 10:02Speaker 1: don't often see two h's side by side. So anyway,
- 10:06Speaker 1: Kevin Bakuba Uh is a dude that is kind of championing,
- 10:12Speaker 1: not kind of very much championing this movement. In two
- 10:15Speaker 1: thousand seven, he went to Thailand and tasted crickets deep
- 10:18Speaker 1: fried crickets and Uh, he's from California, and he was like, Hey,
- 10:22Speaker 1: this is really good. He's been far out. They've been
- 10:25Speaker 1: doing this UM in Thailand since the late nineties. The
- 10:29Speaker 1: king established a big growing program for crickets and cricket
- 10:34Speaker 1: farms UM education in schools, like you know, this is
- 10:38Speaker 1: a good way to get protein in your diet. And
- 10:40Speaker 1: he said, I think this is the direction of America
- 10:45Speaker 1: should go. And I'm going to get in on the
- 10:48Speaker 1: the money side of it. Yeah, like the farming of it.
- 10:51Speaker 1: Apparently it's a twenty million dollar industry already. Not bad. No,
- 10:56Speaker 1: it isn't UM. And we should say that Bach cuber
- 10:59Speaker 1: Was is one of several um people who are into this, uh.
- 11:04Speaker 1: The idea of cricket farming, commercial cricket farming UM, and
- 11:08Speaker 1: he's definitely one of the o G s for sure.
- 11:10Speaker 1: His business was the first to get approval to sell
- 11:16Speaker 1: crickets as food in the United States. We got FDA
- 11:19Speaker 1: approval because the cricket industry actually is kind of old.
- 11:23Speaker 1: Well it's not too old, but I saw anywhere between
- 11:26Speaker 1: fifty and seventy years old in the US UM. And
- 11:29Speaker 1: they're raised to say feed fish for commercial fish farming,
- 11:33Speaker 1: or to grind up as a protein supplement for um
- 11:36Speaker 1: livestock feed. So people have been raising crickets for a while,
- 11:40Speaker 1: or to feed to like reptiles, um to sell them
- 11:42Speaker 1: to pet stores. So there there was an established infrastructure
- 11:47Speaker 1: of cricket farming UM. But the making the transition from
- 11:52Speaker 1: selling it to feed to cows or fish or snakes
- 11:57Speaker 1: to selling it to people to eat directly, that's that
- 12:02Speaker 1: was a big step, and bok Huber was the first
- 12:04Speaker 1: one to take it in the US UM. I should
- 12:06Speaker 1: just say the reason I point out he's just one
- 12:08Speaker 1: of many is because this How Stuff Works article is
- 12:10Speaker 1: basically like here's my report on Kevin bok Huber's ted
- 12:14Speaker 1: ted talk. You know, yeah, I think just he he
- 12:19Speaker 1: definitely deserves you know, credit because he's leading the charge,
- 12:22Speaker 1: but so are other people as well. Yeah, he's wo
- 12:24Speaker 1: went throughout this thing though. Yeah. Um. And you know,
- 12:27Speaker 1: if you listen to the Intamafaji episode episode no, it's
- 12:31Speaker 1: it's episode. UM. We pointed out then and it bears
- 12:36Speaker 1: repeating that America is new to this, but I think
- 12:40Speaker 1: it was. Canada and the United States and in Western
- 12:44Speaker 1: Europe are literally the only places on Earth that don't
- 12:47Speaker 1: consume insects as a regular part of their diet these days.
- 12:51Speaker 1: So I saw so this article kind of says the
- 12:54Speaker 1: standard of the world regularly consumes insects as part of
- 12:59Speaker 1: their diet. I saw that there's a a Food and
- 13:02Speaker 1: Agriculture organization, the u N Organization reports said something it
- 13:08Speaker 1: was more like about a third of the populations rather
- 13:10Speaker 1: than eight percent, maybe like thirty which is still significant.
- 13:16Speaker 1: It is um and in in the West specifically, the
- 13:20Speaker 1: idea of eating bugs is not It's not commonplace, right,
- 13:25Speaker 1: And I actually saw a pretty good explanation for why. Um,
- 13:31Speaker 1: Like thirteen of the fourteen large livestock animals that are
- 13:36Speaker 1: domesticated are found in Eurasia and made their way over
- 13:42Speaker 1: to the America's and those things those animals provide not
- 13:46Speaker 1: just meat, but also things like milk, um, clothing, everything. Basically,
- 13:53Speaker 1: So since since these what you would call Western countries
- 13:57Speaker 1: had access to these domesticated animal most they never needed
- 14:01Speaker 1: bugs as a food source. And then secondly, since they
- 14:05Speaker 1: were raising domesticated animals, by definition, they had um a
- 14:11Speaker 1: sedentary um agricultural lifestyle, which meant that their exposure to
- 14:17Speaker 1: bugs was bugs as pests. So not only were bugs
- 14:21Speaker 1: not edible, they were something you that were just undesirable
- 14:25Speaker 1: on their face. So that led to the it closed
- 14:30Speaker 1: the door on bugs being eaten by Westerners, and so
- 14:34Speaker 1: that that came to be filled by a sense of disgust,
- 14:39Speaker 1: which is a basic human emotion, but it's the only
- 14:41Speaker 1: one that's culturally bound, which means you learn what is
- 14:45Speaker 1: disgusting from your from your cultural group, for sure, but
- 14:51Speaker 1: that also means you can unlearn it too. Well, this
- 14:54Speaker 1: big cricket has anything to do with it. Uh, why
- 14:58Speaker 1: don't we take a quick break and gonna come back
- 15:00Speaker 1: and talked about a UN report that kind of changed
- 15:03Speaker 1: a lot of things about four years ago? Change, all right,
- 15:26Speaker 1: So I promised you a UN report. Uh, there was
- 15:32Speaker 1: a big kind of sea change. I don't know about
- 15:35Speaker 1: sea change. It was the beginning beginning of the sea change. Uh.
- 15:39Speaker 1: They issued a report called Edible Insects Colon Future Prospects
- 15:43Speaker 1: for Food and Feed Security, and it was basically just
- 15:47Speaker 1: championing um intoma fagy and all the benefits that surround it,
- 15:51Speaker 1: like how nutrient dense crickets and other insects are, the
- 15:57Speaker 1: fact that it's um socially sustainable, UM economically viable and friendly,
- 16:04Speaker 1: environmentally friendly, and it kind of, you know, kind of
- 16:07Speaker 1: paints it as like, hey, this this is the future,
- 16:11Speaker 1: or it could be part of the future at least
- 16:13Speaker 1: of getting protein into you know, Americans, right. And the
- 16:19Speaker 1: report itself didn't focus exclusively on crickets, but crickets feature
- 16:22Speaker 1: prominently in the report to the it was about. It
- 16:25Speaker 1: was about bugs in general and eating bugs in general UM,
- 16:29Speaker 1: and it was it made a pretty big splash. I
- 16:31Speaker 1: remember when it came out like that. It really hit
- 16:34Speaker 1: the news cycle pretty hard. But it also caught the
- 16:36Speaker 1: attention of that box cuber guy who said, all right,
- 16:40Speaker 1: I'm gonna I think I'm gonna get into this because
- 16:42Speaker 1: he had already been exposed to eating crickets in Thailand.
- 16:44Speaker 1: And then that when that UN report came out, he
- 16:47Speaker 1: I think um began his start up here in the
- 16:49Speaker 1: States of his commercial cricket farm start up. Yeah. It's
- 16:53Speaker 1: funny they have put in this article that it was
- 16:56Speaker 1: the most popular document in the history of the u N.
- 17:00Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't see that anywhere. I think that
- 17:02Speaker 1: was he said that at his ted report. Yeah yeah,
- 17:05Speaker 1: but um yeah, they definitely made a splash. I'll give
- 17:08Speaker 1: him that for sure. Yeah, he spoke at a ted
- 17:10Speaker 1: X Youngstown, Ohio, because that's where he's base, that's where
- 17:14Speaker 1: his company is, and I guess he he just made
- 17:17Speaker 1: up his own ted X probably. All right, So let's
- 17:20Speaker 1: talk about crickets. Um. Well, all insects in particular are
- 17:26Speaker 1: very rich in protein. Like we've talked about. They have
- 17:28Speaker 1: a lot of healthy fats, a lot of zinc, a
- 17:30Speaker 1: lot of iron, a lot of calcium. Uh. And there's
- 17:34Speaker 1: something called I guess efficient animals. Um, well, yeah, I
- 17:40Speaker 1: mean this is when vegetarians and vegans are like, these
- 17:44Speaker 1: kind of terms make their skin crawl. I'm sure. But
- 17:47Speaker 1: the kind of efficiency you get out of raising, in killing,
- 17:50Speaker 1: and eating an animal is on a spectrum. And you
- 17:54Speaker 1: know from cows, like you talked about, it's probably the worst.
- 17:57Speaker 1: I wouldn't guess, don't you think? Right? Right? The animal
- 18:00Speaker 1: itself is efficient at converting food that you feed it
- 18:04Speaker 1: into stuff that you can get from it. Yeah, So,
- 18:09Speaker 1: like you said, not a lot of the cow is
- 18:11Speaker 1: used to eat. No, it's like of a cow is
- 18:15Speaker 1: is edible and digestible. And I think the chicken is
- 18:19Speaker 1: about the most efficient animal protein right now, stuff like crickets.
- 18:24Speaker 1: So there's two different things here, right. So you've got
- 18:27Speaker 1: um efficiency in nutrient conversion, which is say, like if
- 18:31Speaker 1: you eat an apple, you can convert you know x
- 18:35Speaker 1: amount of the energy available in the apple into you know,
- 18:39Speaker 1: energy for yourself metabolism, right right, Yeah? That but poop
- 18:44Speaker 1: is waste, so that stuff wouldn't count toward efficiency. It
- 18:47Speaker 1: would actually subtract from your efficiency and lower your efficiency.
- 18:51Speaker 1: If you ate an apple and used every bit of
- 18:54Speaker 1: it and it produced zero poop, you would have efficiently
- 18:59Speaker 1: converted that app all into useful energy. Right. It would
- 19:03Speaker 1: be to be a magic apple and you wouldn't need
- 19:05Speaker 1: a poop shoot, um, but instead you do. Because there
- 19:09Speaker 1: is no such thing as percent efficiency in any animal, right,
- 19:14Speaker 1: But some are better than others, like you were saying,
- 19:17Speaker 1: and with a cricket, it's something like, um, they're like
- 19:20Speaker 1: twelve times more efficient at converting food into usable energy
- 19:26Speaker 1: or stored in this case stored protein. Right, So for
- 19:30Speaker 1: every kilogram of live cricket weight, which is a pretty
- 19:34Speaker 1: substantial amount of crickets, but but kilogram to kilogram or
- 19:37Speaker 1: pound a pound, it just takes one point seven kilograms
- 19:41Speaker 1: of feed to produce one kilogram of live crickets. Not
- 19:45Speaker 1: bad for a cow. It takes ten kilograms of feed
- 19:50Speaker 1: to produce one kilogram of beef, very inefficient by comparison.
- 19:55Speaker 1: So if you take the fact that it doesn't take
- 19:58Speaker 1: much feed to produce a biomass of crickets, and that
- 20:03Speaker 1: crickets are edible and digestible compared to the cows edible
- 20:08Speaker 1: and digestible, then you really have a if you're just
- 20:13Speaker 1: going pound to pound or kilogram to kilogram, and much
- 20:16Speaker 1: more nutrient dense, much more efficient, and then therefore much less,
- 20:20Speaker 1: much less wasteful um animal that you could eat. Yeah,
- 20:25Speaker 1: a lot of that has to do with the fact
- 20:26Speaker 1: that crickets are cold blooded, so they're very much more
- 20:29Speaker 1: efficient at converting that feed into protein. And um, crickets
- 20:33Speaker 1: aren't even the most efficient insect, you know, No, huh,
- 20:38Speaker 1: I'm not sure which one is. Actually, I think meal
- 20:42Speaker 1: worms are pretty efficient. You just said that because you're
- 20:47Speaker 1: eating a meal worm. Right, Well, I have a meal
- 20:49Speaker 1: worm farm. I was gonna ask you to buy in
- 20:51Speaker 1: on huh all right in my pocket. See is that
- 20:57Speaker 1: a meal worm farm in your pocket? It is I
- 21:00Speaker 1: pocket mulch uh. So, like we mentioned Mr bach Uba
- 21:04Speaker 1: is um. If he's not German, he should be Kevin
- 21:09Speaker 1: back Ruber. I think he's a He's Irish German. Maybe
- 21:15Speaker 1: it's spelled k v in though, so we're just inserting
- 21:18Speaker 1: vowels for me, right, like d n C E. What's that?
- 21:23Speaker 1: It's this band? Okay, probably the young person's band, I believe, so,
- 21:29Speaker 1: no wonder, I don't know, but he has one of
- 21:32Speaker 1: I think they're about and this has probably changed even
- 21:34Speaker 1: since this has written about twenty five or so cricket
- 21:37Speaker 1: startup farms here in the United States. Yeah, I couldn't
- 21:40Speaker 1: find the current number. Yeah, let's just say at least
- 21:43Speaker 1: twenty five, although all but they go under pretty quick,
- 21:47Speaker 1: you think, so. I could see I could see losing
- 21:51Speaker 1: your shirt on cricket farming right now, it's so it's
- 21:55Speaker 1: just so early, and and the market is so not there,
- 21:58Speaker 1: and the stuff that producing is so expensive. Well, and
- 22:02Speaker 1: their output right now is still really small. Um, in
- 22:05Speaker 1: the in the early years here. But you know, the
- 22:08Speaker 1: dream for for him and all these cricket farmers is
- 22:12Speaker 1: that that one day it will it will. I don't
- 22:15Speaker 1: think they have designs that will ever be like in
- 22:18Speaker 1: some parts of the world where it's on every menu
- 22:20Speaker 1: and every restaurant, but they would certainly like to see
- 22:22Speaker 1: cricket snacks in grocery stores and um menu offerings and
- 22:28Speaker 1: some some of the more wacky hipster restaurants at least. Yeah.
- 22:34Speaker 1: Did you do you watch Shirt Tank? Oh? You know,
- 22:36Speaker 1: I do? Okay, So did you see the one with
- 22:38Speaker 1: Rose Wang and Laura Dasario. I've seen them all, Okay.
- 22:42Speaker 1: So you saw the one with Chirps their snack, their
- 22:45Speaker 1: cricket based stack product, Chirps. I want to try it.
- 22:48Speaker 1: I do too. Um. I'm not like, I'm not an
- 22:52Speaker 1: adventurous eater, as you know, but I would totally try
- 22:55Speaker 1: fried crickets and things that doesn't gross me out for
- 22:57Speaker 1: some reason. No, I I and I would try it
- 22:58Speaker 1: as well, and do you I don't know if you
- 23:00Speaker 1: remember not. But when we did that uh locust thing
- 23:04Speaker 1: for Science Channel, it's like the second time has come
- 23:06Speaker 1: up this month. Weirdly enough. Um, they made fried locusts
- 23:10Speaker 1: and I refused to eat them. And it wasn't because
- 23:13Speaker 1: I was grossed out. It was because I was sure
- 23:16Speaker 1: that I was going to have some sort of weird
- 23:18Speaker 1: allergic reaction to them, and I would have had, yeah,
- 23:22Speaker 1: and I would have had to have been, like, you know,
- 23:24Speaker 1: life flighted somewhere to a hospital and would have missed
- 23:26Speaker 1: my flight home. Um. That that is the only reason
- 23:30Speaker 1: I didn't eat them. It had nothing to do with disgust.
- 23:33Speaker 1: But in that u N report they address allergies and
- 23:37Speaker 1: they said that it's actually exceedingly rare that somebody has
- 23:40Speaker 1: an allergic reaction to an arthropod um or to an insect.
- 23:45Speaker 1: I should say, um, But the reason why I thought
- 23:49Speaker 1: so was because, yeah, I had had um, I like
- 23:52Speaker 1: a shrimp blow up once and I just was not
- 23:55Speaker 1: about to roll the dice on that, not for what
- 23:58Speaker 1: Science Channel was paying. Well, I think it's very funny
- 24:01Speaker 1: that you, uh, I remember your shrimp. You're shrimp years
- 24:07Speaker 1: in that you had an allergic reaction to shrimp, but
- 24:11Speaker 1: you wanted to eat shrimp so bad you started to
- 24:15Speaker 1: eat shrimp a little bit just to see if you
- 24:17Speaker 1: could eat shrimp. Yeah. Shrimp chips, yeah, which use real
- 24:21Speaker 1: shrimp powder. It's like I think Japanese or Korean or
- 24:24Speaker 1: Chinese delicacy. But now you can eat shrimp, right. Yeah,
- 24:27Speaker 1: I did immunotherapy and now I'm fine. I can eat
- 24:29Speaker 1: shrimp all day long. I love that you were so
- 24:32Speaker 1: dedicated to Yeah. I love shrimp. Man, good shrimp, like
- 24:35Speaker 1: season with old Bay, just simple stuff. Oh man, so good. Uh,
- 24:40Speaker 1: this is a great time to bring up one of
- 24:41Speaker 1: my big pet peeves. I know that cooking with shrimp
- 24:45Speaker 1: heads and tails on increases the flavor quite a bit. Yeah,
- 24:50Speaker 1: which is why they do it. Um. But it's one
- 24:54Speaker 1: thing if you get an appetizer with like the uh,
- 24:59Speaker 1: like a prawn with a head left on or something.
- 25:01Speaker 1: But if you like I get pasta dishes sometimes, oh
- 25:05Speaker 1: that have like heads and tails on them. If there's
- 25:07Speaker 1: a fork involved, you don't want to have to put
- 25:09Speaker 1: your fork down and take the head and tail off. No,
- 25:11Speaker 1: like you literally have to dig them out of the pasta,
- 25:14Speaker 1: take the head and tail off and then put them
- 25:16Speaker 1: back in your food, right, which is just I don't
- 25:18Speaker 1: get why restaurants do that, Like maybe cook it in
- 25:21Speaker 1: there and then take it off for us. So I
- 25:25Speaker 1: ran across the reason probably why. All right, let's hear it.
- 25:28Speaker 1: There's something called keton which makes up the exoskeleton of
- 25:31Speaker 1: m of bugs, but it also makes up the shells
- 25:34Speaker 1: of crustaceans as well. UM and kiton. Supposedly, if you
- 25:39Speaker 1: don't have an allergic reaction to it, Kiton is apparently
- 25:44Speaker 1: good for it's it's said to be good for weight loss, UM,
- 25:51Speaker 1: digestion aids in digestion allegedly UM and I think it
- 25:55Speaker 1: has something to do with your blood pressure too. And
- 25:57Speaker 1: in other countries, non non non Western countries, I think
- 26:02Speaker 1: they prescribed kitan quite a bit as like a dietary supplement. UM.
- 26:06Speaker 1: And I saw one study that said, yeah, it had
- 26:09Speaker 1: a little bit of an effect, a little more than placebo,
- 26:11Speaker 1: but not clinically significant. But it was just one study,
- 26:15Speaker 1: So I'm I'm curious if if kitton actually does have
- 26:17Speaker 1: an effect, but it's possible. They're saying you should eat
- 26:21Speaker 1: the whole thing. Well, that's the shell. What I mean,
- 26:26Speaker 1: it's I don't know. They could also just be a fat,
- 26:27Speaker 1: lazy chef, you know. Well, I mean I'll eat a
- 26:31Speaker 1: soft shell crab so the cows come home. But I'm
- 26:34Speaker 1: not eating a shrimp tail. Yeah it sounds gross. Well,
- 26:39Speaker 1: it's just not like, uh, they don't soften up enough,
- 26:42Speaker 1: you know. But if you think about it, though, if
- 26:44Speaker 1: you're eating a fried cricket or something, you're eating the
- 26:47Speaker 1: whole thing shell and all antenna. Well yeah, but I
- 26:50Speaker 1: think that in the in the soft shell crab zone,
- 26:53Speaker 1: So you eat the shell of the soft shell crab. Yeah,
- 26:56Speaker 1: that's what you're supposed to do, That's what it is.
- 26:58Speaker 1: I don't know that i've ever had soft shell him. Oh,
- 27:00Speaker 1: my friend, is that like a blue crab. No. I
- 27:04Speaker 1: think it's a special kind of crab that has parents
- 27:08Speaker 1: must love it very much. I might be wrong. I
- 27:11Speaker 1: think it's a special kind of crab and then you
- 27:13Speaker 1: prepare it with the shell. But I think the shell
- 27:17Speaker 1: is soft to begin with, though. I don't think it's
- 27:19Speaker 1: just from cooking. But like spider Roll is one of
- 27:23Speaker 1: my favorite sushi rolls, that's a soft shell crab. Okay, yeah,
- 27:28Speaker 1: I thought that was crab like spelled with the K
- 27:30Speaker 1: like fake crab. No, No, that like the little legs
- 27:32Speaker 1: are coming out at the end and everything. That's what
- 27:35Speaker 1: they call it a spider roll because it looks like
- 27:37Speaker 1: a little spider legs. And I'll try that and then uh,
- 27:40Speaker 1: like a soft shell crab sandwiches, I mean open the
- 27:43Speaker 1: bun and there's just like this crab staring at you. Yeah, going,
- 27:46Speaker 1: how's it going. You're gonna eat me in a second,
- 27:49Speaker 1: aren't you. Oh, I'm getting hungry now, and you want
- 27:52Speaker 1: to take a break real quick, well quickly before we
- 27:56Speaker 1: just should mention that they did get a deal on
- 27:58Speaker 1: Shark Tank with Mark Cuban. Right, we're contractually obligated to
- 28:04Speaker 1: munch and Mark Cuban, that's right. We get our kickback coming.
- 28:08Speaker 1: I would try chirps for sure. If the Trips people
- 28:11Speaker 1: are out there listening and you want to send us
- 28:13Speaker 1: some chirps, I will try them up, all right, So
- 28:16Speaker 1: let's take that break, Okay, So chuck, we said, um,
- 28:41Speaker 1: I think I said that one of the things that's
- 28:43Speaker 1: holding this industry back right now is that the it's
- 28:46Speaker 1: so expensive the products they're making. Um, there's something called
- 28:51Speaker 1: cricket flour, which is ground up cricket meal basically a
- 28:55Speaker 1: protein powder made from crickets, right, and it's it's anywhere
- 29:00Speaker 1: from like thirty five to fifty dollars a pound for it.
- 29:04Speaker 1: It's very expensive, a lot of money. But it's really
- 29:07Speaker 1: ironic because crickets require so much less um space and
- 29:14Speaker 1: food and water, um and electricity. It's apparently the the
- 29:21Speaker 1: labor force that is the most expensive thing of any
- 29:24Speaker 1: commercial cricket farm because there it's just hard to find
- 29:28Speaker 1: people who can do that, even though it's not exactly hard,
- 29:32Speaker 1: it's just there's a lot of trial and error going on.
- 29:34Speaker 1: So from what I saw, is the labor force that's
- 29:37Speaker 1: that's eating up most of them the revenue or profits
- 29:43Speaker 1: from cricket farming well, planning all those tiny people, those
- 29:47Speaker 1: three people, right, it's not easy. But there are startups
- 29:51Speaker 1: also that are that are trying to sell like home
- 29:55Speaker 1: cricket kits too, because that's part of the whole idea
- 29:59Speaker 1: where if you're gonna get people to supplement their diet,
- 30:03Speaker 1: well just let them grow them at home too. So
- 30:06Speaker 1: should we talk a little bit about this the farming. Yeah,
- 30:09Speaker 1: so crickets live about seven weeks. Um. I mean that
- 30:14Speaker 1: right there shows you a big difference between that and
- 30:16Speaker 1: like the beef industry. Uh So during that seven week
- 30:20Speaker 1: life cycle, they they have three different environments that they
- 30:23Speaker 1: reside in and they basically live and hang out on
- 30:27Speaker 1: what they call cricket high rises, which are little egg cartons. Yeah,
- 30:32Speaker 1: I saw that. The um they have tried all sorts
- 30:34Speaker 1: of different material and they keep going back to egg
- 30:36Speaker 1: cartons for some reason. Crickets just love hanging out on
- 30:40Speaker 1: egg cartons. Well, who doesn't, uh. And what they eat
- 30:43Speaker 1: is because I was kind of wondering that they eat
- 30:46Speaker 1: grain based feed, organic grain based feed, um, fruits and vegetables.
- 30:51Speaker 1: And they some of them will reach that breeding stage,
- 30:56Speaker 1: some won't, and if they do, they're gonna lay a
- 30:59Speaker 1: lot of eggs, like you know, several thousand eggs a
- 31:03Speaker 1: mommy cricket will lay in her lifetime. Yeah, so many
- 31:06Speaker 1: eggs in fact that they they typically just throw most
- 31:09Speaker 1: of them out, like they'll keep some to grow a
- 31:12Speaker 1: new generation from. But there's just so many that are
- 31:15Speaker 1: just tossed out because they don't have the capacity yet
- 31:18Speaker 1: to grow them. Um. So that you know there, I
- 31:22Speaker 1: think bok Hubert put it like he could be drowning
- 31:25Speaker 1: in eggs. If he's not careful drowning in cricket eggs.
- 31:28Speaker 1: He probably wakes up every night sweating. He probably really
- 31:34Speaker 1: does wake up every night from the cricket chirping. Oh,
- 31:37Speaker 1: I never really thought about that. That must be nice. Actually, yeah,
- 31:40Speaker 1: it can be. So they like hot human environments, or
- 31:43Speaker 1: at least warm, depending on your definition of hot. Hot
- 31:45Speaker 1: to me eight to ninety five degrees fahrenheit with about
- 31:50Speaker 1: a forty humidity level, and the whole process from soup
- 31:55Speaker 1: to nuts or from eggs to chirps is about fifty
- 31:59Speaker 1: six yeah. Um yeah. And if you you can do
- 32:04Speaker 1: this yourself at home, you just need basically two terrariums.
- 32:08Speaker 1: You need to put them near heat because that is substantial.
- 32:11Speaker 1: Eight to nine degrees is hot, waight, hotter than you're
- 32:14Speaker 1: gonna keep your house. So you do need like a
- 32:16Speaker 1: heat lamp of some sort, and you need water a
- 32:19Speaker 1: source of water to Those are the two most important
- 32:22Speaker 1: things with raising crickets. And the reason you have two
- 32:26Speaker 1: terrariums is because in the one where you have like
- 32:29Speaker 1: the thirty h initial crickets, say, um, you're gonna put
- 32:33Speaker 1: a dish of soil, and that's where they're going to
- 32:35Speaker 1: lay their eggs. You want to check the soil every
- 32:38Speaker 1: day for eggs. And when you find eggs, you take
- 32:40Speaker 1: that little soiled dish out and put it in the
- 32:43Speaker 1: other terrarium. And then that's where the eggs are gonna
- 32:45Speaker 1: grow and hatch. And um, when the crickets hatch, they're
- 32:49Speaker 1: fully formed. There's no larval stage, right, they don't go
- 32:53Speaker 1: from like a maggot into a cricket. They're fully formed.
- 32:56Speaker 1: They're just much smaller, right, And according to Aris Stottle,
- 33:00Speaker 1: it's about around here or maybe within the next week
- 33:04Speaker 1: or so, that they're the most delicious. Aristotle. Yeah, Aristotle
- 33:08Speaker 1: wrote in his Historia an Amalium. Actually he was writing
- 33:11Speaker 1: about cicadas that um, they're better when uh there before
- 33:15Speaker 1: their last mold. So I guess I wouldn't apply to crickets, No,
- 33:19Speaker 1: I would, because they did they they do more. He
- 33:22Speaker 1: also said that females taste best after copulation because they
- 33:26Speaker 1: are full of eggs after Aristotle has copulated, right or
- 33:30Speaker 1: after instead of a cigarette, just seed a pregnant female cicada.
- 33:35Speaker 1: Try this baby, right, It'll knock your socks off, I
- 33:38Speaker 1: bet Aristotle, pillow talk with something else or just be
- 33:43Speaker 1: like uh yeah, and he just keeps going on and
- 33:46Speaker 1: on about cicadas. Um, so harvesting. Uh, I mean, there's
- 33:52Speaker 1: no way around it. At some point, like any live
- 33:54Speaker 1: thing that you're raising, you're gonna have to kill it.
- 33:57Speaker 1: And instead of um, like what we see on factory
- 34:01Speaker 1: farms with cows and pigs, what you do on a
- 34:04Speaker 1: cricket farm is you cool them down and then freeze them.
- 34:08Speaker 1: And so what happens is they they get cold, they
- 34:11Speaker 1: start to get a little chili, their temperature drops, and
- 34:13Speaker 1: they go into what's called a dia pause um, sort
- 34:17Speaker 1: of a hibernation like state. And then pretty much after
- 34:21Speaker 1: that they go it is sure as chilian here and
- 34:25Speaker 1: then they're gone and frozen. Yeah, apparently they eventually free solid.
- 34:29Speaker 1: So they spent about twenty four hours in the freezer
- 34:31Speaker 1: and then they're ready to be sold either ground in
- 34:34Speaker 1: to say like a powder or baked into a fried snack,
- 34:38Speaker 1: or sold to somebody else. But that's that. And I
- 34:42Speaker 1: was like, do they wake up then if you if
- 34:44Speaker 1: you heat them up in a pan, But apparently after
- 34:47Speaker 1: twenty four hours and they're frozen solid, they're they're dead,
- 34:51Speaker 1: but to them it's just like going to sleep forever.
- 34:54Speaker 1: Yeah what Um? I kind of wonder when I was
- 34:56Speaker 1: reading this, I was like, how do veacons and vegetarians
- 34:59Speaker 1: feel about eating in sex. Supposedly it does not count
- 35:02Speaker 1: as vegetarian. Well, it depends on who you ask. Um.
- 35:05Speaker 1: I didn't get any like there is no official rule book. Um,
- 35:10Speaker 1: there's not. I don't think so. But basically, I just
- 35:14Speaker 1: went to a bunch of vegan and vegetarian websites and
- 35:17Speaker 1: looked to see what people said and it it kind
- 35:20Speaker 1: of ranged from well, sure, allied insects and this is
- 35:23Speaker 1: a much better way to to get protein in your
- 35:26Speaker 1: body than animals, um, to where other people said, no,
- 35:30Speaker 1: it's a living thing, not going to eat it. I
- 35:32Speaker 1: get all the protein I need from plants. If you're
- 35:35Speaker 1: eating something a live animal, then you're not a vegan
- 35:39Speaker 1: or a vegetarian. Yeah. I saw crickets referred to as
- 35:42Speaker 1: many livestock all one word. I mean they are a
- 35:45Speaker 1: live there, a living animal. So I guess it's a
- 35:51Speaker 1: personal choice. That sounds like yeah, just like you know
- 35:54Speaker 1: vegetarians eat fish sometimes too. Uh, well, that'd be a pesctarian, right,
- 36:00Speaker 1: I guess. But I've met plenty of vegetarians. They're like,
- 36:03Speaker 1: I'm a vegetarian and I eat fish, leave me alone.
- 36:07Speaker 1: And that's an ego. Technically you're a pescutarian and then
- 36:09Speaker 1: you get punched in the face. Right. Uh. So eating
- 36:12Speaker 1: crickets um, Some people say sort of nutty. Some people
- 36:17Speaker 1: say it's a little sweet, like sweet corn. I'm I
- 36:21Speaker 1: would like to know for myself. I wish we could
- 36:22Speaker 1: have gotten her hand on some chirps beforehand, but maybe
- 36:25Speaker 1: we can follow up in the future. We need a
- 36:27Speaker 1: big bowl of chirps right here, like yeah, like we
- 36:29Speaker 1: did with soilon. Yeah, with a soilon, soilon, we'll do
- 36:34Speaker 1: a follow up soilon. Um. So there's this lady, Daniella Martin,
- 36:39Speaker 1: and she has a travel show and a well it's
- 36:42Speaker 1: an insect cooking and travel show called Girl Meets Bug.
- 36:46Speaker 1: Very cute. Um and we should say the chirps. Ladies
- 36:51Speaker 1: called crickets the gateway bug also that was kind of funny,
- 36:55Speaker 1: uh and puny. And Daniella says that she started eating
- 37:00Speaker 1: crickets and kind of became fascinated with insects in general
- 37:04Speaker 1: when she was in Mexico and Yucatan, and it kind
- 37:09Speaker 1: of became, I don't think, obsessed, but just super interested
- 37:12Speaker 1: in this as a as her protein of choice, and said,
- 37:16Speaker 1: you know, I started cooking him up with the little
- 37:19Speaker 1: a little butter, little onion, little salt, and like with anything,
- 37:23Speaker 1: if you put it in a pan with some butter
- 37:25Speaker 1: and onion and salt, maybe a little garlic, it's probably
- 37:28Speaker 1: gonna taste pretty darn good. Yeah. You could cook almost
- 37:32Speaker 1: anything with butter, salt and onions and you're fine. Yeah,
- 37:36Speaker 1: even when you hear stories of these creepy cannibal people,
- 37:42Speaker 1: think you should cook it in butter with a little
- 37:45Speaker 1: salt and onion and garlic. Yeah, I think that one
- 37:47Speaker 1: guy who advertised on like Craigslist cannibal he yeah, he's
- 37:51Speaker 1: saw tatd with yeah onion, you're right, huh, Yes, I
- 37:55Speaker 1: think it was. I would say what he ate penis
- 37:58Speaker 1: that he did, and that was a very disturbing case.
- 38:02Speaker 1: Sure so, um, she says, Uh, Crisping him in the
- 38:06Speaker 1: oven is another besides you know, grinding them in the powder,
- 38:10Speaker 1: cooking them up like broiling him in the oven. Don't
- 38:12Speaker 1: overcook it. Olive oil with garlic, salt, throw them in
- 38:15Speaker 1: about two fifty about fifteen minutes and a little sea
- 38:20Speaker 1: salt on top maybe, and you're gonna have a crunchy, delicious,
- 38:24Speaker 1: nutrient rich snack. Yeah. And you want to clean them
- 38:27Speaker 1: off too if you're cooking them from raw, I mean
- 38:30Speaker 1: they're they're bugs. Uh, that's it's something you want to do.
- 38:34Speaker 1: What do you do just like wash them in the calendar?
- 38:37Speaker 1: I guess so yeah. Um, but I think like if
- 38:39Speaker 1: they're already prepared, you're probably okay. Um. Because one of
- 38:43Speaker 1: the big things that that that like bok Hubert did
- 38:46Speaker 1: by getting f day approval, like now you can't just
- 38:50Speaker 1: raise crickets on just anything, like they have to be
- 38:53Speaker 1: fed food that is okay for humans. The two um,
- 38:58Speaker 1: which is something that the cricket farming industry is running
- 39:02Speaker 1: up against because one of the big things proponents are
- 39:04Speaker 1: saying is like, man, you could raise crickets if you
- 39:07Speaker 1: had large scale cricket farms, you could raise crickets on
- 39:11Speaker 1: food waste. And if you if you if you do that,
- 39:16Speaker 1: not only are you like raising your crickets, you're also
- 39:18Speaker 1: getting rid of food waste. You're composting basically, right, composting,
- 39:24Speaker 1: that's the way you say it. Um. But apparently AFTERDA
- 39:27Speaker 1: he's like, now you can't feed things food waste your
- 39:30Speaker 1: nut job. You're gonna eat it eventually, so there's big
- 39:34Speaker 1: rules against it. But that I think they're trying to
- 39:36Speaker 1: chip away at that as well. Yeah. I remember being
- 39:39Speaker 1: alarmed when I briefly worked in the chicken industry when
- 39:43Speaker 1: I found out that a lot of chicken feed is
- 39:45Speaker 1: made from chickens. Yeah not not okay, Yeah, it's just
- 39:49Speaker 1: it's not right. So I saw in I think Popular Science,
- 39:53Speaker 1: they had a little nutrition facts thing for crickets. It's
- 39:56Speaker 1: so cute. They said, for a hundred grams of crickets,
- 39:59Speaker 1: you're can add about a hundred and twenty hundred and
- 40:02Speaker 1: twenty one calories um. You've got about five and a
- 40:08Speaker 1: half grams of carbs, twelve point nine grams of protein
- 40:12Speaker 1: that is substantial um, seventy five point eight milligrams of calcium,
- 40:19Speaker 1: and nine and a half milligrams of iron. That's also
- 40:21Speaker 1: pretty substantial. Just from a hundred grams. I think they
- 40:24Speaker 1: estimate that's about twenty to twenty two crickets um, like
- 40:28Speaker 1: a handful and a half. Nice. That is, that's pretty good.
- 40:33Speaker 1: And and the idea that if you are just raising
- 40:37Speaker 1: cricket yourself. You can feed them your own kitchen waist
- 40:42Speaker 1: and then eat the cricket yourself. There's also, right right,
- 40:47Speaker 1: there's also um very low barriers to entry into cricket farming.
- 40:52Speaker 1: So if you're um, if you're not a wealthy person
- 40:56Speaker 1: and you need to make some extra money, you could
- 40:59Speaker 1: conceivably raise cricket yourself and then sell them at market too.
- 41:02Speaker 1: It's like podcasting, exactly exactly. I think that's it. I
- 41:09Speaker 1: got nothing else. All right, Well, let's cricket farming. Everybody
- 41:12Speaker 1: go make it happen. And in the meantime, you can
- 41:15Speaker 1: look at this article on how stuff works dot com.
- 41:17Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for a listener mail,
- 41:24Speaker 1: I'm going to call this Kevin Spacey's accent, explained. Oh
- 41:28Speaker 1: and before I read this, there is a House of
- 41:30Speaker 1: Cards spoiler alert to that. Hey, guys, just listen to
- 41:35Speaker 1: the episode on accents. I'm happy you brought up Kevin
- 41:37Speaker 1: Spacey's accent from House of Cards because I have a theory.
- 41:41Speaker 1: Spacey plays a character Frank Underwood, grew up poor in Gaffney,
- 41:45Speaker 1: South Carolina, but then went on to the Citadel and
- 41:47Speaker 1: Charleston and created a persona that eventually lands him president.
- 41:51Speaker 1: His accent does not sound like a bad attempt at
- 41:54Speaker 1: the r less old money Charleston accent, but I think
- 41:57Speaker 1: it fits the character instead of a twang are full
- 42:00Speaker 1: accent that he'd have from Gaffney. Spacey's playing Frank Underwood,
- 42:05Speaker 1: who was playing someone with noble Southern roots, and that's
- 42:08Speaker 1: why it sounds fake. Am I giving Kevin Spacey too
- 42:12Speaker 1: much credit? Possibly? But being from Greenville, South Carolina, enjoyed
- 42:15Speaker 1: dissecting his Carolina accent, And actually I don't have much
- 42:18Speaker 1: of an accent myself, except with words like a lawyer
- 42:22Speaker 1: and oil. Jerry just left because my brother, who's ten
- 42:27Speaker 1: years older, trained it out of me when I was
- 42:29Speaker 1: very young. He said he didn't want people to underestimate
- 42:31Speaker 1: my intelligence because of our accent. He would correct me
- 42:34Speaker 1: every time I would say things like turn the light
- 42:37Speaker 1: zone instead of turned the lights on, or naked instead
- 42:41Speaker 1: of naked. If you're saying naked, length to dry bamboo
- 42:46Speaker 1: and say again again. I sort of wish I sounded
- 42:49Speaker 1: more like the rest of my family. But what a
- 42:51Speaker 1: considerate thing for my big brother could have done when
- 42:53Speaker 1: he was a teenager and that is from Mary Jean Murphy.
- 42:58Speaker 1: That was pretty great. Mary Jean, Your brother is a
- 43:00Speaker 1: little social engineer, isn't he? I like that, Um, and
- 43:04Speaker 1: thank you also for the spoiler about Kevin Spacey becoming
- 43:07Speaker 1: president on House of Cards. If you want to get
- 43:09Speaker 1: in touch with us like she did, you can tweet
- 43:11Speaker 1: to us. So that's y SK podcast. I'm also at
- 43:14Speaker 1: josh um Clark. You can hang out with us on
- 43:16Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can
- 43:18Speaker 1: hang out with Chuck at Facebook dot com, slash Charles W.
- 43:21Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email to Stuff
- 43:24Speaker 1: Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always
- 43:26Speaker 1: joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you
- 43:28Speaker 1: Should Know dot com For more on this and thousands
- 43:35Speaker 1: of other topics, is it how Stuff Works dot com