Holly Rae Research

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I am not putting it past the WEF and other NGOs to try to ban certain foods and mandate others—that could happen. But demonizing an entire food group that has been a part of human history for thousands of years because we hate the WEF and their cronies and championing factory farmed proteins is not really an intelligent move.   

The WEF and the EU have suggested that the world’s industrial and developed populations consider adding insects as a protein staple in order to reduce the amount of climate change factors caused by conventional animal farming, and the alternative media has lost their mind over it. The conservative alternative media and the libertarian media, being rightfully suspicious of the WEF, EU, UN, and other NGOS are claiming that these groups aim to completely replace all of their favorite animal products with crickets and mealworms. The left, on the other hand, has been quieter on this issue but generally advocate for anything that the wannabe oligarchs claim is going to save us from climate change.

Both of these sides have a point, but I have yet to hear a levelheaded response to this push to make insect foods more widely available to the public. Here is a breakdown of common talking points supplemented with my interpretation of this matter:

1. “Eating insects is dystopic and unnatural! I want my steak!”

I’m having a hard time understanding how it so “weird” and “dystopic” to eat insects and not weird to eat factory farmed animals that are raised in dirty, crowded conditions (the link here takes you to a documentary that portrays the undercover discoveries of the conditions of factory farming). There are numerous serious issues with factory farming in the US without even mentioning climate change. There was a time when most animal farming happened in local barns and pastures and meat dishes (especially meat-centered dishes) were reserved for special occasions or served a few times a week. Only in the United States has it been popular to not only have meat frequently, but every day. Factory farming of mammals and birds has become commonplace due to an extremely high demand for animal protein in the developed world, forcing the world’s leading livestock food companies to adopt more and more crowded, inhumane, and questionable mass farming practices. The waste byproducts of factory farms cause major pollution issues in many American areas such as predominantly black neighborhoods in North Carolina . The vast majority of American farmland is cultivated with roundup ready corn and soy in order to feed such vast amounts of livestock, which uses billions of gallons of water and fertilizer that seeps into groundwater supplies and runoff, irreversibly damaging insect and amphibian populations.  There is an issue with factory farming, and denying this and proclaiming that steak harvested from a cow who ate ground up herbicide-laden corn and medicated its entire life is somehow the “ideal” American food is operating under a grand narrative about food that has caused factory farming to become a legitimized practice. Anyone who has relied on locally sourced pasture meat will know that there is a world of difference between meat sourced from an animal who grazed normally and factory farmed meat, which is what most Americans consume. And even further, organ meats and bone broth are the most nutrient dense parts of animal tissues, but I haven’t been seeing the “meat is best for you” crowd mentioning that. If someone is willing to say that eating insects, which can often be eaten whole and minimally processed to be palatable to humans, is dystopic and unnatural they need to be willing to admit the issues with factory farming and that it is not normal in the grand scheme of human life. Eating only mammal and bird meat or eating only insects as a protein source isn’t the answer (especially when there are overlooked plant proteins in legumes and nuts), but pretending that the concept of eating insects in general is some kind of unnatural and dystopic option is ignorant to how most Americans source their animal proteins currently. Eating insects itself is not dystopic and unnatural. Being under the power of government that wants to force you to eat only insects is. But that is not what is happening.

2. Human insect consumption is not a new idea and not necessarily a sign of poverty.                                                                              

• Cooked and seasoned insects are already a commonplace snack offering a high protein and high vitamin alternative to mammal and avian proteins that require far more investment to raise and slaughter. One example is chapulines, which are seasoned and pan friend grasshoppers. They are a popular food item found in Mexican cities such as Oaxaca and are a part of the cultural heritage of such cities. Before Westerners brought over more expensive livestock, chapulines were a popular source of protein, vitamin, and fiber. They are also naturally occurring and naturally plentiful, albeit traditionally they are difficult to catch.

• In the street markets of Thailand, mixed varieties of fried insects are common as well. While according to the travel guide linked, some upper-class citizens look down on eating these snacks just like in the West. Nut the practice of street vendors selling fried insects is still popular.
• In Brazil, queen ants are a highly sought after food that many take long trips to catch for human consumption. Just like in Thailand and most of the west, there are still some people who don’t care for them and choose to eat other things.

• D. In many African countries such as Ghana, eating larvae, termites, and grasshoppers is often not a lifestyle choice, but a necessity for many rural citizens in between plant and other animal harvests. Still, there are organized efforts  in West and Central Africa to use insect farms as a cost effective means to help feed impoverished areas of the nation with insects, which can help people have more access to protein and vitamin rich food options.  

Here’s an alternative take:

3. Through all of the panic on this issue, here are some things that most have been ignoring about insects such as crickets as food:

• Insects such as crickets contain more protein per gram than most common livestock and also contain fiber and minerals, which typical livestock is lower in.

There can be benefitston cultivating and consuming more insect proteins for some populations. As with anything, the State should not be implementing these changes. Citizens and the market should.  

4. White industrialized populations see a future of insects as a popular food source as a dystopian nightmare because:

• The WEF has endorsed it, and we don’t like them.
• It is not popular in in the industrial West

But we forget that eating meat on a regular basis is a very recent privilege, and the factory farming industry has been forced to take extreme measures to fill the demand for the industrialized world’s choice in protein.

5. Rating foods on a political scale is one of the most unnecessary forms of polarization that has come from recent WEF critics that have appeared in alternative media and conservative media.

You do not need to be on board with the WEF and the UN and the “liberal agenda” to support the diversification of human food staples and thinking outside the box when it comes to farming sustainably. The fact that most of Americans’ diet consists mostly of corn, soy, wheat, beef, chicken, and pork is a byproduct of State subsidization, making it difficult for other food products to become popular and inexpensive. If American consumers begin to show demand for insect food products, then they will become more widely available and less expensive.

Marking a certain food group as “dystopic” and proclaiming “I’ll never eat a bug as long as I live!” to spite the WEF, the EU, and the UN is a misguided and borderline juvenile response to the these NGO’s musings and the fearmongering happening in alternative media.

Regular people and market capitalists deciding to incorporate more insect proteins into their diet are not the nightmare many are making it out to be. Anyone who goes on the internet or their news station and tells you to panic and be afraid of something is playing the same game as the mainstream media: getting you addicted to their narrative of fear. If you can make someone afraid of something, they will come to you for updates and more information about a problem—regardless of how much of a threat it is to that person.

The distinct issue  at hand is with State control in general. The idea of NGOs and governments forcing people to eat certain things or banning and regulating popular staples until there is nearly nothing left is problematic. Eating insects in general is not. You can argue that the State and wannabe worlds oligarchs are making an attempt to shift the cultural conversations of the West to delegitimize meat consumption for other alternatives such as legumes and insects, but claiming that we all need to be afraid of being forced to eat insects is not as justified as the fearmongering videos and articles you may be seeing make it out to be. We should be wary that these groups will try to limit our eating choices, but time spent panicking about this issue can be also spent on learning how to grow and rear plants and animals in a decentralized fashion, which is our only yea out of State control.  

If people are concerned about the State involving itself in people’s diet, especially in America, they should be taking a look at the fast food and processed foods being served in schools to millions of children right now. It is cherry picking and fearmongering to be up in arms about the moves these NGOs and governments are making in the direction of more insect consumption and not the current state of the food system right now that is currently causing thousands of children to become obese and develop diabetes.

Decentralizing food production and purchasing foods from local farmers as often as we can, along with learning to grow our own vegetables and livestock, is more important than worrying about the WEF is doing. Every day we waste in fear is another day that we do not take action in advocating and providing for ourselves.