Hey Teachers, Leave Those Kids Alone – Part One

“I mean, what’s this one? ‘Ere we are: Cockroach Cluster!” – Monty Python sketch

There is something very dark and sinister about how children have been mobilised for the cause of climate change and saving the planet. Children have been subjected to terrifying lectures by people such as Roger Hallam and Rupert Reed of the group Extinction Rebellion (XR). Headmasters have boasted of the fact that they have UN trained climate change specialists within the schools. Teachers have sanctioned petulant school strikes involving thousands of students. Climate activism is rehearsed and practiced in the classroom. (More of this in future posts.)

I thought that we had reached peak shock value with the exploitation for political purposes of the autism-driven monomania of school-refuser Greta Thunberg. It was both shocking and bizarre that a young girl could be both eulogised and manipulated by press and politicians and I genuinely feared for her safety. But I was wrong. Something even more creepy is happening in schools.

In a bizarre marketing trial in Australia, thousands of children have been fed insect-based snacks, the manufacturer saying, “they are healthy for kids and great for the planet”. 1000 school canteens across Australia have been fed snacks containing bugs by a Western Sydney company Circle Harvest. So, possibly tens of thousands of children in Australia are munching on crisps laced with eco-friendly cricket protein made by the company.

Circle Harvest says that one 50g pack contains more protein than an egg, as well as 14 per cent of the recommended daily intake of iron and that these products can help save the planet from global warming as protein from insects generates about 1/100th of the greenhouse gases compared to traditional livestock farming.

“It’s better for you and it’s better for the planet.” says Circle Harvest founder Skye Blackburn, who is also an entomologist and food scientist.

The crisps are available in Smokey BBQ, Saltbush and Rosemary and Lightly Salted, although all contain insects. A 50g bag comes at the bargain price of five Australian dollars, but for the customer who just can’t get enough chitin, there is a 500g “party bag”.

So far, more than 500,000 packs have been purchased across NSW, Queensland, SA and WA and by the end of the first term next year, the company expects to be in 6000 schools. Circle Harvest has also started working with nursing homes to introducing insect-based proteins there which are “easier to digest and can be part of smaller meals that many older people preferred”.

Not to be left out, seven elementary and middle schools in the Oxnard School District, Ventura County, California are also participating in an edible insect project.

“[children are] raising meal worms and doing experiments to see how the meal worms’ growth is affected by what they feed them,” “They read about how our diet influences the amount of greenhouse gasses produced. We also will tie the lessons to cultures that eat insects.”

says Professor of Biology Ruben Alarcon who is leading the project.

Not to worry. Australia and California are on the other side of the world. Your children are safe. But not so fast. Not to be left out, similar trials are being rolled out in the UK. Children in Wales are being fed bugs as part of a plan to also get them to switch from meat to insects – and hopefully to persuade their parents to follow their lead.

” Many children have the power of pester, so in some cases can be great agents of dietary change within the family”

said Verity Jones from the University of the West of England in Bristol who is involved in the study.

Pupils at the four primary schools involved in the study are to be offered insects to eat as part of a project to gauge children’s’ appetite for “alternative protein” such as crickets, grasshoppers, and mealworms.

The project will use surveys, workshops, interviews and focus groups to explore young people’s understandings and experiences of alternative proteins. The researchers have teamed up with teachers and hope many of the five-to-11-year-olds in the study will be willing to taste some edible insects to see how they find them.

“We want the children to think about alternative proteins as real things for now, rather than just as foods for the future, so trying some of these foods is central to the research,”

said Christopher Bear, of Cardiff University.

They hope to offer them a product called VeXo, which combines insect and plant-based proteins.

“We have combined the power of plants plus insects to deliver a sustainable, versatile and tasty food that appeals to children and adults alike. Over the past two years, we have carried out research with almost 200 Welsh school children and 100% agree that VeXo is delicious!” – boasts the company website. It also carries handy recipes for cooking with bugs: Cricket Power Balls, Grub Granola and Honey and Miso Fried Locusts.

The stories have been extensively covered by mainstream media outlets such as The Telegraph and The Guardian and all have reported the trials in a matter-of-fact way. These are the same media outlets that, post Brexit, lost their minds over the possible importation of chloride-washed chicken. Many of the mainstream media reports contain justifications, such as alleging that we don’t realise we are already eating about a quarter of a kilogram of insects each year.

“You are already eating insects – you just don’t know,” Circle Health CEO Skye Blackburn said. “we may as well add it on purpose.” Media has repeated the claim that “a third of the world’s population eat insects such as beetles and ants and we in the West should too.” and that “Current farming practices are unsustainable, and that the consumption of most traditional animal product must stop.”

Circle Harvest founder Skye Blackburn with a meal worm Rocky Road treat.

To further normalise the eating of bugs many organisations are also pushing the idea. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation thinks that eating bugs can tackle climate change and solve the problems of malnutrition AND obesity.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2013/05/439432

‘A list’ celebrities such as Angelina Jole, Ellen DeGeneres and Nicole Kidman (and many others) have also promoted the creepy idea.