A Gelatinous Future?

Hey there!

I came across another brand new April Fools’ Day invention I wanted to share with you (be warned, you might find it a little gross; but we’ll see…).

In recent years, you might have heard of experts suggesting we should eat insects instead of meat, as is common in many Asian countries, because there are plenty of them and they’re pretty healthy due to their low fat and high protein content. Not only would we improve our own health by eating more (Wait…more? Since most of us have probably never eaten insects, I should say any) insects, but changing our eating habits would also help reduce our enormous carbon footprint. 

 

Eating insects? Ugh, gross! If that’s what you just thought, you’ll probably be just as delighted by the following idea… ah no, I’ll give you some background information first.

I hope you won’t stop reading the moment I risk – once again – saying the following two words: climate change. (You’re still there? Cool!) Many people are just fed up with hearing, reading, being taught about it. But, in my opinion, that just indicates how pressing a problem it really is. Climate change has a bunch of nasty consequences, and one of them is that ocean temperatures have increased drastically.

Another main problem we have to face nowadays is overfishing. Most fish that ends on our plates is not caught in a sustainable way, causing many species to become extinct.

 

There’s one species, though, that profits from these two factors – the jellyfish. (Have you guessed where this is heading yet? ;) In case you’re a little confused right now about what kind of fish the jellyfish was again (actually, none at all), here’s a nice little picture of one of those beauties:

Overfishing has extinct many of the jellyfish predators. In addition, jellyfish thrive in the now increasingly warm oceans. The combination of these two factors boosts their reproduction. This again means catching jellyfish wouldn’t do much harm to the environment. On the contrary, it would help regaining ecological balance.

There’s a very informative, though unfortunately rather long talk by Daniel Pauly on the development of (over)fishing and its consequences:

Again, the idea of eating jellyfish was first implemented in Asia a long time ago. Jellyfish are a popular delicacy in China, for example, usually served as a salad. Besides being literally brainless and consisting to 90 % of water, they – like insects – are pretty healthy because they don’t have any cholesterol or saturated fat, but loads of proteins.

Now, jellyfish has also been introduced to Western markets as an April Fools’ Day prank, in form of the jellyfish burger launched by the fast food chain Fast with Fries. The idea was to tell people that fish would from now on be replaced with jellyfish in order to stop further overfishing and at the same time control jellyfish reproduction.

Watch this video to find out what it might be like to eat your first jellyfish burger:

Rather gelatinous? Could do with some more flavors? A little like very rubbery, tasteless squid? Mmmh, doesn’t that sound absolutely yummy?!

The point is not that we actually have to get used to jellyfish from now on. People in Europe or the U.S. would probably just refuse to buy it. The whole jellyfish burger thing is more about the mere idea of not having any more fish to eat – what would that be like?

It’s just an appeal to think about what we do, buy, eat, and what consequences our behavior entails. I for one already know that I prefer having less fish over ever having a jellyfish burger. ;)

But in case you think it’s a pity that this was only launched as a prank, here’s the good news: Jellyfish burger recipes do exist! Check out this one: jellyfish burger recipe 

What do you think? Would you dare trying it out? Or is jellyfish where you draw the line?

Have a delicious day! ;)

Bye-bye