Taste Testing
Over the weekend I ordered chocolate covered superworms and spicy mealworms from Don Bugito. I figured I need to eat some insects before I preach about it! Day 2 of class I shared these snacks with my classmates to encourage entomophagy. Many of which hadn't eaten mealworms before, some have eaten worse. General consensus was they were surprisingly tasty although some students were uneasy looking at the spicy whole worms before popping them in their mouths.
I also began gathering supplies and sketching ideas for the insect homes. I decided to focus less on the design of this setup, rather utilizing bins I bought from Ikea and adapting them, as well as constructing my own wooden frame to house the containers.
In addition, I met with my advisor, entomologist, and teacher which revved me up for this project. I'm trying to document and film as much as I can per request of my teacher (also hence this blog), because I will be able to form a documentary of sorts in the end. I love this idea. My advisor is eager to see the system design aspect, and I told him it's coming! Dependent of my lab findings. The entomologist is excited for the experiment to begin as we don't work with live insect in the Nature Lab as much as we'd both want. My teacher likes my project and wants to make sure I am encompassing all realms this overlaps with, social, cultural, ethical, etc. Apparently, as told by the entomologist to me, insects don't qualify as animals and are oftentimes exempt from laws. Mealworms are also a non-model organism used commonly in biolabs for testing. These larvae I'm testing are also already grown on a farm-sized scale. Therefore, ethically I believe it should be fine, but apologize to opposing vegan and religious views (I do hear you, agree, and want to know your thoughts more). I am personally against animal testing and shop accordingly, and think trial testing on mice (and all animals) is wrong. But insects are on a different page in my mind, due to the sheer quantity, large hatching numbers and high expected death rate.
As for current work, I'm finalizing the insect study and am trying to pin down what exactly I'm trying to study. Is it discovering if a unbeknownst insect, the Black Soldier Fly, can also consume plastic? Is it to test how to convince the larvae to consume more plastic by methods of incorporation with food? I have yet to solidify this, but that's for next week. Until then, I'm continuing my research on the life cycles of these larvae, designing containers for the adult stages of waxworms (Wax Moths) and Black Soldier Fly larvae because they're bound to fly, and planning the lab set up for my experiment.