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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Mmmmmmmm, the Covid is strong, in this one.
Best wishes to all for a gradely chocolate weekend.
And to you, too. Good tidings of some sort would be very welcome.
Hope you have a grand Easter weekend AE.
Thank you.
First of all: downvoter, I hope you enjoy those vegan easter eggs carved from turnips.
Second of all: huxley, I do believe you left a reply comment for me the other day. It was an advisory comment, if I can say that without triggering anyone, but I got distracted and by the time I logged in the comment had been removed. Just wanted to say I did see it and thanks for the suggestion.
How do you know when someone has replied to a post, without scrolling through to find it? This site is unusual in not advising of replies and votes… or, have I got some settings wrong?
Click the bell icon on the left of “post comment” before you post and you’ll get notified of replies.
Thank you… I hadn’t even noticed it!
Thanks Gregory. All the best.
Downvoters are out in numbers today I see. They seem unusually agitated by the reference to chocolate and the expressing of best wishes. Maybe some sort of Easter trauma? Anyway, thanks Huxley for the good vibes.
Or perhaps they just find these kinds of comments twee, unnecessary, self-indulgent, faintly embarrassing and diluting of the high quality of on-topic commentary and analysis below the line here. Also, didn’t people stop wetting themselves with excitement over being first poster in about 2003?
Thank you for being brave enough to say, loopDloop. Increasingly tiresome to have to scroll past this drivel every single b___ day, from a few people who have decided the btl section of this site is their own private chat room for some reason.
Some of the comments from some of the members are absolute drivel and that’s without the trolls and idiots responding to them, but I rarely post a rude response.
I suspect there are some of us on here who like to think we have a connection, however tenuous, with fellow posters.
Perhaps it’s a weird humanity type thing which is becoming increasingly rare these days.
Maybe The Groan would be more to your liking.
How very strange to see this expression of such distaste and a sense of martyrdom to others on Good Friday.
Greetings, when they are offered, are pleasant interactions with others; who may respond or not as they choose. Fancy thinking of that as “drivel”.
Those greetings would take, for the slowest of readers, a maximum of ten seconds to “scroll past” (that’s if it’s read out loud). I had no idea that ten seconds could be tiresome!
We live and learn, hp. However, I’m unconvinced by the reprimands and wish to let you know that I shall happily respond to greetings offered by you and any other offenders.
They make me smile. If that’s twee, unnecessary, self-indulgent, faintly embarrassing and an indication of a very low-quality person who doesn’t know any better, so be it.
Many thanks for your kind and thoughtful response.
I agree that for those who don’t enjoy the salutations it is seconds to scroll past. Trolls hi-jacking threads and destroying them is far more annoying.
I shall continue with my attempts at communal uplift as circumstances permit.
I should add that, thanks to your wise counsel (and my earnest and necessary efforts at self-improvement), I no longer respond to trolls: NO MATTER WHAT THE PROVOCATION!!!
I might try an experiment. I think I’ll come on here every morning and declare “F*ck you!” Just that alone as my greeting. I’m going to see if I can accumulate more dislikes than you and Hux with your “Good mornings”. Because you guys may as well be swearing like troopers, the amount of ‘thumbs down’ action you get!
I would back you all the way Mogwai.
Much appreciated.
100% concur!
The misery guts are crawling out the woodwork finally. Took them long enough to own up to their petty, childish behaviour.
And the really odd thing is that we know who they are now they have identified themselves.
Wonder if they are the downtickers?
Dead right!!
Seconded.
I love to see the greetings.
What is wrong with a bit of community – especially when it seems to be what TPTB seem determined to eradicate?
I know, Deborah T.
And I think it is brilliant! I love it!
You know, we have been subject to some of the most depressing and profoundly disturbing events in human history these past two years. One of the things that keeps me going is the belief in human beings and our ability to connect at the heart level. Huxley and others, myself included, have been involved in commentary of the type you mention here on many, many occasions. However, it’s refreshing sometimes to come up from the trenches and breathe some fresh air. To denigrate what is an entirely human interaction as ‘twee, unnecessary…’ etc is perhaps missing the point of the last two years.
My feelings precisely – beautifully put.
I have seen distaste and vitriol poured out on this site for entire nationalities. I don’t agree with that, but I understand that people are angry; that anger can lash out in all directions; and that anger is human.
Saying “Good morning” here is a verbal equivalent of smiling at others. That is also human. I understand that there are those who disapprove, and I’m sorry that they find it so distasteful. But not so sorry that I shall desist from responding to such warmth.
They’ll just have to go on scrolling through the tiresome offensiveness; perhaps sparing the time for a downtick along the way.
I hope you have a very pleasant weekend, Aethelred.
You can only imagine what these face-aches are like in real life, right?? LOL
Thanks, AE! You too.
Appreciate your well considered response and wholeheartedly second.
Quite right. If people can manage to keep their peckers up, and exchanging some pleasantries and warm greetings on here makes just a bit of difference to somebody to lift them out of the doldrums then I say, “Sod the miserable buggers!” Face like a slapped arse, the lot of ’em!
Thank you kindly Aethelred. A pleasant Eater weekend would be appreciated by many I’m sure.
…Proves beyond doubt that the NHS is beyond repair and urgently needs to be reformed – but not in the way they want to steer it.
It needs to be purged of politics – particularly the sort that favours global communist control and eradication of the British people.
Have a look at Taylor’s CV and look left. Has he any medical expertise? You would get more sense out of a bowl of cornflakes.
This comment was sponsored by Breitbart, who provided the image.
I know meme bait when I see it!
Hydrogen 11 times worse than CO2 for climate, says new report
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/hydrogen-11-times-worse-than-co2-for-climate-says-new-report/
by Paul Homewood
(let’s not forget CO2 is vital for all Life on Earth)
Stand for freedom with our Yellow Boards By The Road next events
Monday 18th April 2pm to 3pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A3095 Warfield Rd/
A329 Millennium Way
Bracknell RG12 2XT
Wednesday 20th April 5.30 to 6.30pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A321 Lower Wokingham Rd &
B3348 Dukes Ride
Crowthorne RG45 6NZ
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens
(Cockpit Path car park free on Sunday)
Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Burn the hydrogen then instead of letting it escape!
What is Conversion Therapy?
Is it being strapped down, like Alex in Clockwork Orange and having electric shocks administered, in an attempt to persuade you that you are not gay?
Or, is it having your genitals and breasts removed, or modified in an attempt to show that you can literally convert your body from one sex to another?
I may not be in favour of either, but I know which is worse…
Hmm, actually it’s the other way around Mr. Taylor: the ‘health service’ needs a clear message about early treatment protocols for Covid that save lives, instead of checking whether people spit blood several days after catching the bug.
Mr Taylor needs to be reminded of who pays his wages and who funds the NHS, and crucially what the primary role of the NHS is.
Matthew Taylor is a useless, dumb bureaucrat : this man
still thinks wearing masks on the underground stops Covid!
If he is so poorly informed about such a matter then he should be sacked. A prime example of what is wrong with the NHS.
Yep – as he has moved on from one sinecure to another, he has become progressively more evil. I would say that the sewer needs draining except that that, literally, is where he belongs.
Matthew Taylor is in desperate need of Conversion therapy because his understanding of the purpose of the NHS is decidedly arse about tit.
https://sebastianrushworth.com/2022/04/14/what-defines-a-good-drug/
Worth a read, discussing the pros and cons of commonly used drugs in terms of their benefit to the patient and the possible side effects of taking them. Eye-opening!
Great article MM.
“the average 70 year old who is on five drugs continuously will probably at best only benefit in any measurable way from one of those drugs. The other four are not providing any benefit, they’re just contributing to side effects (which become increasingly likely, and increasingly deadly, the older you get). Things get even worse when you consider that drugs interact in unpredictable ways to increase the risk of side effects, so the risk of harms increases exponentially with each additional drug added. Which is why it used to be considered bad form to have a patient on more than five drugs simultaneously.”
Worried me a little when I think of the people I know living on carrier bags of meds their GPs prescribe for them.
And if this is the case for pharmaceutical drugs then what on earth must it be for mandated jabs???
One size fits all is no way to practice any kind of healthcare when you consider the massive differences between every man and woman due to gender, life experiences, diet etc and all of the impacts those things have on gene expression.
.
I just wanted to share an upsetting experience on a crowded mainline train yesterday afternoon.
On the seat behind me, there was a masked woman (probably one of only a handful using masks on the whole packed train), who was refusing to let anyone use the seat next to her. She was complaining in a loud voice that she was terrified of Covid, that it was irresponsible of the train company to run such a crowded train, and couldn’t possibly let someone sit next to her. She was challenged several times in the course of the journey by standing passengers. From her reaction, she thought she was being entirely reasonable. I heard her weeping for about twenty minutes and then she phoned a friend for sympathy about the way she had been treated,
My reason for posting this here is to demonstrate the degree of unnecessary anxiety that has been induced in people especially those that were previously vulnerable anyway (as I suspect was the case here). If it were happening in other circumstances it would be called abusive behaviour and open to criminal charges.
Hypochondria is a debilitating condition. It has been triggered/induced/validated/encouraged/channeled by the evil lies
The government deliberately tried to induce what is effectively some sort of OCD / anxiety disorder – and ‘evil’ is definitely the right term for that. Those who are unfortunately familiar with this type of condition are likely to have spotted what they were up to at once.
…and only around 2 years later than we should have.
NHS Confederation Chief Executive Matthew Taylor: The logical conclusion of what he’s saying is permanent health fascism – we’ve had multiple “vaccines”, lockdowns, masks and we now need them forever because people will keep getting covid because of variants and weakened immune systems. Exactly as predicted two years ago – another conspiracy theory.
Perhaps Mr Taylor should go and have a look at how the Swedish NHS is doing.
Don’t panic, this doesn’t mean people were not at it like rabbits. It means the Cult of Death still marches on, and, naturally, we had a record high number of babies murdered in the womb in 2020:
‘210,860 abortions were reported in England and Wales in 2020, the highest since records began.’
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2020/abortion-statistics-england-and-wales-2020
While society was ‘so concerned’ with the preservation of human life, we had the most murders in the womb carried out since records began. The Cult of Death was not going to allow a pseudo pandemic and its ‘efforts to save lives’ to get in the way of its mass genoicide of the unborn:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2020/abortion-statistics-england-and-wales-2020
Feel warm and fuzzy yet?
Think of the perverted self-contradiction and self-deception involved in a society that pretends to care so much for human life yet marches on relentlessly murdering human life in the womb. Our society does not value human life at all; ours is a culture of death.
No society that justifies the murder of human life in the womb has the moral resources at its disposal to pontificate on the value and preservation of life.
Heart rending but thank you for posting.
Did any women die / end up injured as a result of using those drugs without medical checks first?
And what about the women who have had their fertility trashed by the jabs who cannot go on to carry a baby or who were jabbed when pregnant and go on to deliver a franken-type baby.
The level of evil all around us is mind blowing.
Mr Taylor needs to get back in his box. So far as I can see, the ‘NHS Confederation’ is simply another layer of bureaucracy, and offers no medical input that might be useful to either an NHS employee at any level or a patient.
It appears to be simply a membership body, like a union, but without the potential usefulness. In short, a gravy train. I bet there are some fab annual ‘conferences’ that are all expenses paid for the NHS bigwigs who attend.
In fact, a quick online search reveals that while doctors are doctoring and nurses are nursing, the administrators and ‘leaders’ will be on a two-day NHS Confederation p1ss-up in Liverpool in June this year. So if you have an op booked for 15 or 16 June (or, say a week afterwards, bearing in mind the hangovers), I’d be prepared for postponement and cancellation as I expect the ‘systems’ will be down.
Here are this year’s ‘Expo’ themes, taken from the website: (the tl:dr is: waffle, pointless drivel, who can we sell personal data to, and more waffle)
The keynote speaker is a gentleman called David Olusoga. Mr Olusoga is a historian, broadcaster and filmmaker. His most recent TV series include Empire (BBC 2), Black and British: A Forgotten History (BBC 2), The World’s War (BBC 2), 3 seasons of A House Through Time (BBC 2) and the BAFTA winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners (BBC 2). All not really in the slightest relevant to running a hospital, but very interesting no doubt.
The event is sponsored by Palantir, a US software company specialising in ‘big data analytics’, and by Google Health, which is a LOL if ever I’ve heard one (data harvesting, I imagine).
Everyone’s welcome, so you can buy a ticket (900 quid if you’re not a member or can’t rustle up any accreditation by some charity or another), though it’s members or NHS only at the conference dinner, soz (so you won’t be able to see your local NHS CEO on the pull and grass them up).
link: https://www.nhsconfed.org/events/nhs-confedexpo
I am lost for words.
Taxpayers, WE, are paying for this crap.
Covid “positive” tests; the gift that never stops taking.
Our local branch of Lloyd’s Bank in a tiny South Shropshire town with a staff of 3 and sometimes only 2 and which only opens 3 days a week never goes a full month without a sign appearing in the window stating that “This branch is temporarily closed due (wait for it) to one of our staff testing positive, blah,blah, etc etc”
Like I say: The gift which never stops “taking the p×ss!
Which pushes everyone online and then you get a message along the lines of: ‘Due to exceptionally high demand, you may experience long waiting times…’
The Zionazis are shooting people today in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound – so far “only” with rubber bullets, but more than 100 have been injured.
Meanwhile, Sweden and Finland may apply to join NATO.
And “someone” may have sunk the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet.
So all in all, things are coming along nicely.
The Palestinians are the Nazis, they wave the swastika at Israel, they are the haters of Jews, Hitler is extremely popular in Islam.
Your smear of Israel as Nazi is quite revealing.
Your leftism is showing.
Matthew Taylor of the NHS Confederation is a bog standard leftie agitator. What’s the point of having Tory governments if these bolshies are still in positions of power?
So the “science is grey” now, is it? For the last two years it has been so clear cut and settled that you ran the risk of having your career terminated for suggesting otherwise. Maybe Walensky should now share the fate she was happy to see inflicted on others.
Given what has been forced on the people of the world these last two years I consider this a somewhat restrained response.
Termination only of her career?
Chunt !!!!
It seems so easy for a few dozen reincarnation-head poshies from Extinction Rebellion Yah to take over the bridges in one of the world’s leading cities that maybe Vladimir Putin should offer them a job in the Ukraine?
Oh wait – the London bridges weren’t defended against such types.
Does anybody know what MI5 do all day?
I think that sums up the situation very well.
Extinction rebellion state actors? Never.