Let Them Eat Bugs

Let Them Eat Bugs

David Robb

The global elites have shown great interest in insects as a source of food.  Not for themselves, mind you, but rather for the rest of us.  It is only incidental that using bugs as a food source would reserve fresh fruits and vegetables, beef, pork and chicken, and other current foodstuffs for those most deserving, such as themselves.  We have to ask, though, is eating bugs really such a good thing for humans?

Most of the interest around bugs as a food source has centered around such insects as crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches, and similar insects that reproduce quickly, have relatively large mass, and will eat all sorts of vegetable waste material and convert it into bugs.  While this sounds like a good way to convert organic mass into foodstuff in short order, there are other things to take into account.

The aforementioned insects all have one characteristic in common.  They have exoskeletons.  That is, unlike mammals who have our skeletons on the inside and the soft parts outside, these insects are much more like crabs and lobsters where their shell serves the purpose of our skeletons, and all the soft, nutritious parts are protected inside.  While some might like the crunchy outside, similar in texture to some breakfast cereals, there is a bit of problem - a fly in the ointment, as some might say.

This outer shell is indigestible by humans.  Our digestive system cannot convert the shell material into useable nutrients.  Eating these insects would be like eating a crab whole, shell and all, and not the soft-shell variety either.  Crab shells and insect shells alike use essentially the same indigestible substance that we are not equipped to handle.  Since the shell forms a large portion of the insect, that means that a sizeable portion of the mass has no nutritional value, reducing the food value of these bugs.

Why bugs?  As is obvious to many of us, this elite fascination with making people eat bugs is not about nutrition or “saving the planet” or any other positive purpose.  Rather, it seems most to be about the demonstration of power and control.  Food production and consumption is fundamental to life, and the history of humanity is in large measure the history of securing and producing food.  Regional cuisines reflect the adaptations people have made to convert the local materials into consumable foodstuffs.  

Strongly # foods found in many areas have been developed to disguise the taste of decay where rapid food spoilage is a problem.  Pickling, drying, and other food preservation methods were devised in areas with long periods when food supplies were not readily available.  It is only natural that were our food supply restricted to insect materials, we would find ways to make that food source interesting and even enjoyable.

No, it would seem that the push to force us to eat bugs is all about the psychological effect of being forced to consume a foodstuff that until now has largely been the food of lower animals and of desperate people.  It is promoted for its humiliation value, not its nutritional advantages.  Being forced to eat carrion beetles is the next best thing to being forced to eat raw dung.  What becomes manifestly obvious is the contempt the “elites” hold for common humanity. 

It is the modern equivalent of “let them eat cake”—an expression that eloquently captured the arrogance of the elites of the time.  We know what happened to that elite aristocracy.  They saw themselves secure in their power and privilege.  It was much to their surprise to find that power to be an illusion, a mist dispelled by the sun of revolution.