Remember the underworld operation in "Snowpiercer" where cockroaches were used as energy blocks? Passengers on the lower floors of the train can only receive a piece of cockroach protein block as their only source of food every day, but the elite in the first-class carriage can enjoy fresh meat and vegetables. Reality directly created a cosmic magical realism blockbuster for our European friends - 3% of the raw materials in the whole wheat bread you ate yesterday may come from EU-certified mealworms (mealworms).
This is not a fantasy. The new EU regulations in 2025 have approved that mealworms will enter the food system from January 20, 2025. This means that insects, as the protagonist of sustainable food, have officially entered the stage of public diet.
Regarding the bugs crawling onto the dining table, many European netizens have collectively burst into tears and become anxious, saying that they will boycott all companies that sell such things.
Supporters point to the FDA's statement that a teaspoon of pepper may contain 40 insect fragments, while 35 fruit fly eggs and about 10 whole insects are allowed per 8 ounces (227 grams) of raisins as evidence of the "inevitability" of entomophagy.
However, a considerable number of netizens think that the EU's saucy operation is too disgusting: even if insects are a protein substitute, everyone should be allowed to choose independently.
Picture sourceX@GirlfromMars
Netizens who are not in Europe gloated: "Fortunately, I am not a member of the European Union, and these bugs will not crawl into my bread."
Image sourceX@Cromorphs
There are also a large number of people who are confused about this policy: Why is the EU always obsessed with letting us eat bugs?
Picture sourceX@GirlfromMars
Since 2021, the EU has been obsessed with turning bugs into food. In 2023, the attempt to amend the "Novel Food Regulations" triggered public outrage because they wanted to make crickets mandatory in food. They claimed that this bill could "reduce consumers' psychological resistance to insects" and also attempted to avoid labeling obligations through technical provisions.
However, this operation directly encountered the backlash of consumers. Organizations such as BEUC accused the draft of infringing on consumers' right to know. 320,000 people signed a petition to protest, forcing the EU to withdraw the proposal.
Although the new bill in 2025 is also revised based on the "Novel Food Regulations", this time after the EFSA safety assessment, this insect powder is allowed to be used as a food ingredient, with a maximum addition ratio of 4% (bread) to 3.5% (cake), and the label of such insect-added products must be clearly marked as "containing insect ingredients". Transparent operations allowed the bill to be passed smoothly.
Source X: Netizens boycotting food containing insect powder
But when it comes to eating bugs, not only ordinary people are very resistant, but officials from various countries are also anxious and have joined the war of criticism.
Laurent Duploon, a French Republican lawmaker, criticized the EU's censorious operation, which would lead to French people "unknowingly" eating insects. "Those who want to eat crickets, I invite them to eat on my grass, and others can continue to eat good beef ribs."
Former Bulgarian Interior Minister Rumen Petkov directly described the new EU regulations as "gas chambers of the 21st century" and claimed that insect meal snacks are creating a "European child extermination plan."
Activities for kids to eat insects
But why does the EU insist on implementing this policy when most people are opposed to eating insects? It is actually because of a protein crisis in 2050.
According to data released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, by 2050, the global meat demand gap will reach 150 million tons per year, and traditional animal husbandry will occupy 76% of arable land and consume 49% of fresh water.
WRI senior researcher Tim Searchinger said: "Insect farming only requires 1% of the land to produce the same protein, which is a must for humans to avoid ecological collapse."
The European Union strongly advocates this policy. It is precisely in order to reduce the impact of the food system on the environment that it actively adds insect powder to food so that everyone can gradually adapt to insects and join this action to change the future of mankind.
In fact, many brands were already on the road before the EU implemented this bill.
According to experiments conducted by Wageningen University in the Netherlands, it is actually very simple to get consumers to accept the secret of insect food, as long as the food does not look like insects. The implementation report shows that the acceptance rate of testers for whole fried crickets is only 15%; but when they are ground into powder and mixed into meatballs, the acceptance rate soars to 68%.
What impressed me the most was the series of "cricket food products" launched by MUJI in 2020. With its novel promotion and neat packaging, it attracted a lot of attention at the time.
At the time of "Cricket Senbei", this law of true fragrance has been tried and tested repeatedly - from insect energy bars on the shelves of Tokyo convenience stores to pasta containing 8% mealworm powder in Berlin supermarkets, capital and technology are joining forces to insert bugs into the gears of the modern food industry.
MUJI Cricket Chocolate Energy Bar, can you spot the crickets?
Supermarket shelves are no exception. Switzerland's Costco immediately launched the "Insect Burger Steak", which has a solid meat texture. Although it looks a bit dry, there is no trace of insects at all.
Some insect restaurants are doing booming business because of government endorsement and influencers. There is a restaurant in Japan called Antcicada. As the first government-certified insect cuisine specialty restaurant in Asia, it specializes in "the fusion of insects and Japanese food."
One of the signature dishes, "Cricket Soy Sauce Ramen", has attracted a large number of fans. The soup base is concentrated with 100 grams of dried crickets (about 800), and is paired with stick insect tempura. Someone sighed after trying it for the first time: "After eating it, the resistance disappeared; if shrimps lived on the ground, it would taste like this insect."
But regardless of whether these official data and experimental products seem reliable and mature, for opponents of insect food, they are like urban legends like human barbecued pork buns - which is really unacceptable.
People’s natural resistance to insects and their promotion regardless of actual opposition have naturally triggered a frenzy of conspiracy theories.
Take Bill Gates, who is often mired in "conspiracy theories" as an example. A few years ago, he invested heavily in a French insect company called Ynsect. It has now built the world's tallest 17-story vertical insect factory, specializing in the production of mealworm feed. It has raised more than US$500 million and its valuation once exceeded 1 billion.
But what’s behind this huge valuation is horrifying. According to the investigative media EUobserver, Kyriakides, the official who promoted the revision of the Novel Food Regulations in 2023, was revealed after the bill was withdrawn that his family company held shares in Ynsect, a French insect company invested by Bill Gates.
At that time, a large number of people were against "insect eating" and believed that the wealthy class headed by Bill Gates were poisoning the food of ordinary people.
There are also voices of doubt and criticism on X: Various studies have confirmed that the chitin contained in most insects is toxic to humans, but Bill Gates and government agencies let ordinary people serve as guinea pigs, all for the sake of making money.
Judging from some market data, this wave of insect protein conspiracy theories is not groundless.
Currently, only one French company, "Nutri'Earth", has obtained the exclusive sales rights for mealworm powder granted by the European Union for the next five years. Its products include bread, cheese, pasta and other categories, covering almost the dietary choices of most ordinary people.
Edible insect market data shows that the market value of edible insects may grow to a sky-high share of US$9.6 billion by 2030.
We can see from various data that the most darkly humorous thing is that the chain of class contempt is never absent: the private farms of gentlemen still raise Wagyu beef and black truffles, and insect meal has been packaged as the "savior of the common people."
BBC documentary "Can Eating Insects Save the World"
Perhaps food has never been just a simple carrier of nutrition, but more like a scalpel of class power.
To put it bluntly, it is kidnapping ordinary people in the name of environmental protection. In fact, it is all about business, but now people have learned to speak out for their own situation.
Judging from the current EU polls, most people do not want to buy it, and 68% of high-income people still refuse to eat it.
After all, it is one thing for humans not to eat insects, but it is another thing to refuse the insects that are forced to be fed by the policy.
On the one hand, this is because humans have an instinctive resistance to insects. Except for some areas that have an insect-eating culture, most parts of the world believe that eating insects is a symbol of "primitive" or "lower class".
A 2023 study by Wageningen University in the Netherlands pointed out that the essence of human resistance to insect food is a behavior of "class status protection". If eating organic fruits and vegetables is a symbol of upper class society, then eating insects will be labeled as "primitive" and "backward civilization".
The benefits of eating crickets have been discussed for years, but still not many people in the Western world would choose it on their menu.
Kardashian's fridge is stocked with organic vegetables
On the other hand, eating insects has not yet become a trend because it has not been driven by celebrities, so it cannot become a "high-quality food" that represents class like organic fruits and vegetables and Michelin meals.
The Food Future Laboratory of Oxford University conducted an experiment in 2022. Among the high-income groups with an annual income of more than 500,000 yuan, 68% clearly refused to eat it. However, when the subjects were told that "insect powder was developed by Michelin chefs", the acceptance rate increased by 23%; if it was marked "suitable for low-income communities", the acceptance rate dropped by 41%.
So when insect powder is marked with class symbols, eating or not eating it becomes a tasteless stake in social status.
As anthropologist Marvin Harris said: The essence of food taboos is the politics of resource allocation.
Some debates have long gone beyond the scope of nutrition. It is worth pondering that for this policy of compulsory addition of insect powder, if we, as ordinary consumers, are deprived of the right to choose or not, and can only be forced to accept this eating habit that is about to become mainstream, isn't it a hidden tyranny in the new era?
Joshua Evans, co-author of "On Eating Insects," once said that eating insects may not be as good for the environment as everyone thinks. "If we think insects are going to have an immediate impact on monocultures and large-scale farming, we're going to be disappointed," he says.
That’s how popular plant-based meat was back then.
When the "future steak" was created in the laboratory, it was rumored to the sky, but it was revealed that the carbon emissions of producing one kilogram of soybean meal steak are enough to feed half a real cow. Now that insect powder has appeared as a "savior", who knows if there will be a scandal in five years in which "the daily power consumption of cricket farms is comparable to that of Bitcoin mines".
For opponents of the bill, it may not be the bug-eating itself that's disgusting. What they worry about is the possibility of boiling frogs in warm water, and what they fear is the disappearance of choices. If this is the case, it will be a more horrifying degeneration than eating insects.
After all, in the script of "Snowpiercer", no one ever asked the passengers in the last carriage: "Dear, would you like to eat the original or cumin flavor of today's cockroach cubes?"
Image source: "Snowpiercer"