If you found a worm in your sliced bread you would be horrified. You would probably share photos and outrage on social media and return the loaf to the shop you bought it from.
Consider then that mealworm powder has just been approved by the European Union as a novel food ingredient and is now legally allowed to constitute up to 4% of food products like bread, biscuits, cakes, cheese, pasta and potato-based snacks.
But why mealworms? Why bread? And why now?
Mealworms, the larvae of darkling beetles, are presented as an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional livestock, as they are said to have a lower carbon footprint and require fewer resources to farm.
The problem is we don’t want to eat bugs and creepy crawlies. It’s fair to say that despite the almost total lack of demand, supranational organisations like the United Nations, and entities such as the World Economic Forum, along with celebrities and TV cookery programmes, have all jumped on the insect bandwagon, hailing them as the future of food.
The Mandible in the Door
As a 2022 study entitled ‘Consumers’ acceptance of the first novel insect food approved in the European Union: Predictors of yellow mealworm chips consumption’ says, most European consumers “react with disgust” to insect-based food. This is apparently our fault for having “neophobia” (fear of the new), rather than being justifiably ill-disposed to eating things which squirm through waste, effluence and rotting bodies.
As Patrick Fagan and I wrote in Free Your Mind, the push for ‘edible insects’ is a prime example of nudging and psychological manipulation. Since we won’t make the ‘right’ choice by ourselves, we must be sneakily influenced, incentivised, tricked and manipulated to be sensible little serfs and eat bugs.
Breads, pasta and snacks are well-liked, common and tasty foods, and so are the ideal place to hide a few insects, or at least their powdered forms. As the study says, “the inclusion of insects as ingredients in familiar and appreciated foods such as cookies and chips with preferred flavours can be another step toward their acceptance”.
And then there is the selection of the mealworm as ingredient. I challenge you to salivate and smack your lips at this:
Yet, consider the name. The insects currently on offer as novel foods tend to have some connection to food terminology, where mealworms remind us of meals and crickets are phonetically similar to chicken. Both are less offensive than some of their insect-world competitors. The propagandists don’t try to get us to eat cockroaches, spiders or wasps, though all three are equally as fit (or not) for consumption as crickets.
Despite this, mealworms and crickets don’t yet fit into our cultural nutritional lexicon. Grinding their bones, or lack thereof, and making our bread with them is one way to disguise them.
Another is to take tiny insect-sized steps, one at a time, and hope we don’t notice the revolting ruse. It’s here that the foot in the door — or rather the mandible in the door — technique comes into play. We are to be gradually accustomed to the idea of eating creepy crawlies by way of slow, subtle increments. 4% worm flour? You might just about risk it for a triple chocolate chip cookie. And from there to 8%. Then 20%. And on and on, until one day your favourite cookies are replaced in the supermarket aisle with a bag of mealworm crisps.
Well, that’s the idea. I don’t think it’s going to take off. And I’m not alone. Italian politicians were vocally opposed to the vote in the European Parliament. One described the move as “an affront to the farmers and food traditions of our countries” and another asked, “Does the EU want insects on the table? Let them eat them.” Quite.
The media are complicit in this push. From BBC articles about the ‘health benefits’ of cockroach milk to TV chefs endorsing cricket gougères on popular shows like The Great British Bake Off, the mainstream narrative is being carefully controlled. Articles, press releases and research studies about the environmental benefits of eating insects flood our feeds, nudging us toward an acceptance we’re not entirely comfortable with. The more we’re exposed to the idea, the more likely we are to accept it as a fact.
This isn’t just about getting us to eat insects today. It’s about changing the long-term habits of future generations.
Take the example of children being targeted by ‘workshops’ in Wales, where they are taught about the environmental benefits of ‘alternative proteins’ such as insects. Children, we are told, are more open-minded, and by changing their attitudes early, we can influence the food choices they make as adults. It’s the ultimate form of behavioural engineering and I don’t think this what any of us send our kids to school for.
Manipulating Children to Reshape Society
And this brings me to another recent news story about ‘environmentalism’.
The manipulation of children doesn’t stop at food. It extends to the wider climate narrative, where young minds are relentlessly bombarded with a terrifying message: the planet is dying, and it’s their responsibility to fix it.
A new survey commissioned by Greenpeace has revealed that 78% of children under the age of 12 are now ‘worried’ about climate change. Well, why wouldn’t they be? The media bang on about climate disaster non-stop and ‘the environment’ is embedded throughout the curriculum. Extinction Rebellion has put out unconscionably daft videos like ‘Advice to Young People as They Face Annihilation’. Soap opera storylines are purposefully threaded with eco-panic. And today’s doom-laden headline, courtesy of Sky News: ‘Dangerous climate breakdown warning as hottest January on record shocks scientists.’
But there might be another reason that children appear to be scared — this particular survey was funded by Greenpeace, an organisation with a vested interest in stoking the flames of climate anxiety.
As Sir Humphrey Appleby so deftly demonstrated in Yes, Minister, surveys can be crafted to produce the results you want. When organisations like Greenpeace commission surveys that focus on fear-inducing questions about the future of the planet, you have to ask how accurate a representation of children’s concerns they are really seeking. Are they in fact pushing an agenda that plays on fear, uncertainty and guilt? Is it because they want these children to grow up believing they are directly responsible for solving an existential crisis they can’t even fully comprehend? In other words, is a survey about fear seeking to manufacture fear?
This is nothing new. In my 2022 article Little Climate Foot Soldiers, I highlighted how surveys into children’s climate anxiety are often skewed to amplify young people’s emotional distress.
This brings us back to the study ‘Young People’s Voices on Climate Anxiety, Government Betrayal and Moral Injury: A Global Phenomenon’. It was conducted by CAST, the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations. Although it purports that young people are very frightened about climate change, the research only sought agreement with very negative statements such as “the future is frightening” and “humanity is doomed”. Respondents were not asked to agree with any neutral or positive statements. If they weren’t frightened about a perilous future at the start of the survey, they probably were by the end.
When you push children into a state of panic, it’s no surprise that they’re ‘worried’ about climate change. This is a grotesque inversion of the adult-child relationship. Children’s psychological and emotional well-being is sacrificed to serve the aims of ill-informed and exploitative adults. The climate cult is psychopathic.
This manufactured fear is then used to justify ever more radical climate interventions, from accepting economic decline and restrictions on our lifestyle to carbon taxes and, yes, eating insects.
It’s like a sick dog eating its own tail: the fear is created, the fear is polled, and the fear is then used to justify even more fear.
The war for our dinner plate and the war on our children’s minds are one and the same. From mealworm powder in bread to indoctrinating and terrifying children, we are witnessing a full-scale assault on our choices, our culture, and our future.
This isn’t just about what’s on the menu, it’s about who’s doing the ordering.
This article was first published on Laura’s Substack, the Free Mind. Subscribe here.
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