Last week, NPR released a story accusing statements such as “I will not eat the bugs” by conservative talk shows and others as being rooted in “racism”.
In the brief article NPR claimed that “I will not eat the bugs” became a meme on 4chan that was later repeated by conservative talk radio. According to the article “Proponents of the theory lean on the anti-semitic trope that “global elites” have a plot to control the masses- in this case under the guise of climate change solutions- by forcing them to eat bugs”.
The article does not mention, however, that the story didn’t orginate on 4chan, but that the theory that eating bugs is beneficial to the climate orginated on weforum.org, the World Economic Forum’s own website, and has been repeatedly pushed by the WEF for several years.
In February 2022, the WEF published an article title “5 Reasons Why Eating Insects Could Reduce Climate Change”.
According to the article,
- Our consumption of animal protein is the source of greenhouses gas and climate change.
- Insects are an overlooked source of protein and a way to battle climate change.
- The consumption of insects can offset climate change in many ways.
The article then lays out that bugs are more nutricious then other sources of protein, doesn’t contribute to climate change like raising animals does, and doesn’t require the land and work that it takes to grow and harvest plants.
The WEF article claims that “Switching to pet food that contains insect protein is an important way you can make a real impact on the environment. Dogs and cats currently consume one quarter of the meat that is produced in the U.S.”
The article concludes by claiming “There are so many ways to reduce your carbon footprint in food consumption, and they don’t require you to eat crickets for breakfast, but as the saying goes, “Don’t knock the chocolate-covered scorpion until you’ve tried it.”
In another article published in 2021, the WEF tries to lay out the case for eating mealworms.
“Worms are now firmly on the menu in Europe”, the article states.
“The European Union (EU) has ruled that the larval stage of the Tenebrio molitor beetle, the mealworm, is safe for people to eat and it will shortly be on the market as a “novel food”.
The article again mentions that “insects consume fewer resources than traditional livestock” and that consumption could “open new routes to feeding the world’s growing population and alleviating some of the environmental pressures caused by conventional agriculture.”
According to the WEF, the goal is to ensure “access to safe, healthy sources of food is a key part of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) drive. From zero hunger to climate action, from ending poverty to ensuring responsible use of resources, many of the 17 SDGs relate to the food people eat, how it is grown and how it is distributed.”
Even going back to the fall of 2019, the WEF was talking about “a new way of eating”.
In an article published September 2019, the WEF layed out the case for startup companies to use bugs to feed people. The articles mentions the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plans to develop a “ready-to-use therapeutic food product made from insects for children in famine-stricken countries.”