The World’s Most Elite Leaders Want To Make People Eat Bugs?
The European Union approved mealworms and crickets as safe food ingredients.
Earlier this month, Poland’s ruling nationalist party accused their opponent of trying to force Polish citizens to eat worms, after which the opposition party accused the ruling party of the same. The conspiracy theory that political elites are trying to push people into eating bugs isn’t uncommon in European politics right now, mostly thrown about by right-wing and nationalist party members. Most of these theories surfaced just after the European Union approved mealworms and crickets as safe food ingredients.
Since the conspiracy theory has gained traction in Europe, it’s also spreading across the pond to the U.S., bringing attention to the fact that the Food and Drug Administration allows small amounts of insect matter to be included in foods. According to NPR, many conservative politicians and pundits have inflated scientists’ claims that insect-based protein could potentially help mitigate some of the meat industry’s contributions to climate change, taking well-researched articles and turning them into conspiracy theories. The reality, though, is that the idea of eating bugs in countries where that isn’t culturally part of the culinary scene is still marginal.
For right-wing conspiracy theorists, though, the issue with eating bugs isn’t disgust or a disregard for climate change; it’s a matter of government overreach and control. As the theory grew in popularity among conservatives, the phrase, “I will not eat the bugs,” started popping up on platforms like 4chan and soon moved to Twitter and beyond. Though some may be using the phrase literally—as in they literally believe that the government is going to force people to eat bugs—others use it as a sort of ideological statement, an insistence that they will not bow to government laws or demands that they find unnecessary or wrong.
The phrase, “I will not eat the bugs,” also gained traction during the first days of the pandemic and again during vaccine distribution. Many conservatives viewed both the pandemic and the COVID-19 vaccine as manufactured tools of government control and put the worldwide pandemic in the same category as the government forcing people into eating bugs. This is where a conspiracy theory can get dangerous; when people’s belief in a conspiracy theory starts affecting the health and wellbeing of others around them, it’s ceases to function as a harmless theory and functions instead as a dangerous delusion.
Conservatives are now using phrases like “The New World Order” and “The Great Reset” to describe an impending, doomsday-like shifting of government power to enslave and control everyday people. The conspiracy theory about eating bugs has grown and attached itself to a much larger political ideology that rejects reality and embraces an identity rooted in persecution and a misunderstood ideal of individual freedom; the irony of this is that, while they staunchly oppose government control, that’s exactly what they advocate for in their own party. The party of small government and freedom of religion is also the party that seeks to ban gender-affirming healthcare and has effectively used the political system to force their religious beliefs on the rest of the country; its authoritarianism brought to you by the anti-authoritarian conservative party.
