An EU official confirmed the bloc has no plans to label food products containing insects, meaning people will be consuming bugs without knowing it.
The EU’s Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides, said the bloc does not intend to label food products containing insects, leaving consumers blind to whether they are eating foods containing insects.
The push to normalize consuming bugs took a step further earlier this year after the EU gave the green light for an additional two species of insects to be added to food. The Acheta domesticus, otherwise known as the house cricket, was approved for human consumption in Janaury.
This came following the approval for the sale and consumption of the larval form of Alphitobius diaperionus, or mealworm, which was also given the green light for human consumption.
According to a press release from the EU, it says while it is “up to consumers to decide whether they want to eat insects or not,” the bug-based food can serve as an “alternate source of protein,” with the bloc emphasizing that bugs are already eaten in other parts of the world.
While the EU previously said consumption of insects would be a choice, critics say insects will now be snuck into processed products without being labeled, essentially forcing bug consumption on the general population.
Kyriakides confirmed that there were no plans to force food companies to add an “insect logo” on products containing bugs, which would be a small requirement for food manufacturers.
“The Commission is not currently considering additional labeling requirements for foods containing insects, since the existing legal framework ensures that consumers are informed about the content of the food,” the commissioner claimed.
The lack of labeling will leave the general population uninformed about what they are eating.
Swedish MP Charlie Weimers slammed the EU for their sneaky tactics of hiding bugs in food.
“The European Commission is disingenuous when it wants to treat the use of creepy-crawlies as just another food additive and as source of environmentally friendly protein in our food production,” the Swedish MEP said.
Weimers even compared what was happening within the EU to ‘Soylent Green’ – a dystopian film where only elites can afford to eat natural food.
“Many people feel queasy about eating insects and bugs, and I sympathize with that,” he added. “Not everything should be normalized. Food that contains arthropods should have a clear and visible marker on the front – not only the Latin name of the creep in the list of ingredients – so that consumers can make a conscious decision.”
The news comes amid the latest push by the European Union to normalize eating bugs.
While the likes of the World Economic Forum campaign for the mass consumption of bugs, Kyriakides claims that the Kalw Swabb’s globalist body does not influence the EU’s decision to legalize various insect products.
As The World Economic Forum writes on its official website:
The world’s population will reach 9.7 billion people by 2050. This means that despite only 4% of arable land on the surface of our planet, an additional 2 billion more humans will have to be fed.
To address this impending crisis, world experts and leaders will meet this autumn at the UN Food Summit and then the COP26. Often overlooked in these discussions is the potential role insects can play in helping meet this challenge.
Insects are a credible and efficient alternative protein source requiring fewer resources than conventional breeding. Studies suggest that for the same amount of protein produced, insects, mealworms in particular, require much less land than other sources of animal proteins. A study on crickets suggests they are twice as efficient in converting feed to meat as chicken, at least four times more efficient than pigs and 12 times more efficient than cattle.
Today, 12% of the world’s wild whole-fish catch is used for farmed fish in the form of fishmeal. An alternative to fishmeal can be the products resulting from the processing of insects such as the Tenebrio Molitor. It has been shown that with mealworm, mortality in farmed fish is reduced by 40%.
Insect protein has high-quality properties and can be used as an alternative source of protein throughout the food chain, from feed for aquaculture to ingredients for nutritional supplements for humans and pets. All animal species, regardless of their diet, eat insects in their natural diet.
READ: Siemens Chairman Calls for ‘Billion People to Stop Eating Meat’ at WEF in Davos
The whole idea just really bugs me.
What do you call roasted rabbit smothered in sauteed bugs?
Bugs Bunny.