Eat Bugs, Save Planet, Liberals Say

six foods

Six Foods may be the worst thing to come out of Youngstown, Ohio since Communist Party chairman Gus Hall. Like every Halloween trick-or-treat nightmare come to life, it’s obsessed with baking bugs into chips and then selling those chips to people.

Think of every overpriced and unwanted bag of fair trade, gluten free bag of chips sitting at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s filled with pointlessly exotic ingredients that no one wants to buy. Then add a sprinkling of genuine horror and environmentalism.

Voila.

A TWITCHING mass of European house crickets clings to a maze of meshed cardboard in a tent about the size of a minivan. They are inside their new home, an abandoned warehouse in Youngstown, Ohio, where they will prosper until being killed, ground into “flour” and baked into cookies and tortilla chips.

Forty years ago this would have been the opening of a monster movie. Now it’s the result of a Kickstarter project to create environmentally sound foods… because cows emit too many greenhouse gasses compared to insects.

There’s just one problem. Bugs are disgusting, in more ways than the obvious. On Kickstarter, Six Foods promised to feed their bugs “organic” food. But it may not be that easy.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it doesn’t know of any relevant legislation that covers the production of insects as human food, which makes farming them a risky business.

This results in some legal quirks. “You are not allowed to slaughter your animal on the farm,” says Arnold Van Huis, an entomologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and one of the authors on the UN report. “Because insects are animals they are subject to the same legislation. You need a separate slaughterhouse, which is totally crazy.”

Or a really big flyswatter.

Kevin Bachhuber, who founded Big Cricket Farms, as it isn’t subject to the same level of scrutiny as food destined for people. This means there is a lack of transparency as to what the insects are being fed. “Some of those places are feeding their insects gone-off dog food, and that’s obviously not OK for human consumption,” he says.

Neither are bugs.

Even a whiff of a problem, like a food-borne illness caused by eating insects, would be a disaster. “It would tank our entire newborn industry,” says Bachhuber.

Sure, you wouldn’t want anything else to put people off eating bugs.

The UN report that this real life horror movie is based on accused Westerners of being racist for not eating bugs. Sadly the UN delegates have yet to sample what they would like the poors to eat.

Instead they made do with, “Sugar Cane Glazed Chilean Sea Bass, Skillet Seared Atlantic Salmon, New Zealand Rack of Lamb, Roasted Loin of Lamb, Crispy Red Snapper with Langoustine and Medallion of Filet Mignon.”

And who thought up bug chips?

Laura D’Asaro, an African Studies major, Rose Wang, a Psychology major and Meryl Natow, an MFA student in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts.

In other words, liberal unemployables.

  • pupsncats

    I think we humans should eat nothing but bugs. Think of all the money we would save! We could simply walk outdoors and collect our food supply for free. Oh but that would never work because we cannot be allowed to do anything without government approval. That means a whole new federal government agency employing hundreds of thousands of people would need to be created to regulate and tax our bug collection.
    And how would those on the left survive? They wouldn’t have a clue as to how to collect bugs and would need lavish instructions and warnings before they would put a single bug in their mouth. They would also need celebrities to convince them the government controls and regulations were adequate.

    • CapitalistPig

      I can’t imagine eating roaches not previously inspected & approved by FRIEND—-Federal Roach Enforcement & Insect Division.

  • CapitalistPig

    They are quite edible, but like certain animals, they have exceptions —but you could conceivably live on them. That doesn’t automatically follow that we should.
    You can live off just about any living animal–snakes, skunks, rats–they’re all edible but every animal has food preferences & we’re no different. We’ve just advanced so far in food production, preservation & distribution that we can eat the things we want for pleasure–not just what’s available for mere survival.
    I don’t plan on going back to some mythological past where we happily fed on raw crickets, grasshopper skewers & peeled mice in heavy cream.
    No Thanks.

    • Alleged Comment

      What about the leeching communist hog that the capitalist pig has to feed?

    • The March Hare

      Many years ago, I went into a small deli run by a German couple. They had all kinds of unusual foods there including french fried grasshoppers and chocolate covered ants. I just had to buy a bag of grasshoppers and have some fun with it. I would offer them to people to try and the responses were funny. Then I would take one out and pop it into my mouth and eat it, then try again to get them to eat one. About one fourth of them would then try one. They actually weren’t too bad.

      • Alleged Comment

        Going in or coming out?

        • The March Hare

          Fried in a flavorful oil and salted they were very tasty and went down well. After that, you just had to work a few bugs out.

          • Alleged Comment

            I assume like soft-ware?

          • The March Hare

            If you chewed it well.

          • Alleged Comment

            I think they call that downloading the latest aversion.

  • Alleged Comment

    Stupid cockamamie liberal should feed the crickets to chickens and fish. That is part of their natural food and will make EXCELLENT tasting chicken, eggs and healthy-oiled fish.

  • liz

    Yes, a great example of the genius ideas we’d be missing out on if we replaced these college courses that inspire bug eating with the study of the Constitution.

  • DogmaelJones1

    No, thanks to bugs. I’d rather swat them. Or spray them. Give me instead pork chops, a New York (non-halal) steak (or has Mayor-Kaiser Wilhelm “The Killjoy”
    DiBlasio outlawed those, too? Bloomberg missed his chance there.) With a large
    fries, thank you, and a banana-strawberry milkshake. And for dinner…..

  • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

    I’m all in favor of insects as food – for Progressives. By all means, let them practice what they preach (which they seldom do). Besides, a few of them may get as sick to the stomach as American patriots have during the reign of Lord Obama.

  • Jakareh

    I’d sooner dine on liberals, and if they keep getting in the way of food production, as they are doing in California, that may become necessary.

    • American1969

      Soylent Green!

  • drinkycrow

    The bag flour in your pantry already contains dozens of ground up insects and their eggs and larvae – so it’s a tad silly to freak out about this. Westerners have historically eaten insects for thousands of years – there are even Kosher insects (e.g. types of locusts). I’d try the cricket chips – they probably taste pretty good. Chocolate covered ants are nice, as are shrimp, crabs, and lobster (essentially “bugs” from the sea). Don’t knock something till you try it…sheesh!

    • American1969

      Actually, you make a fair point. There have been many cultures that have eaten insects has part of their diets. However, demanding that we should all suddenly start doing this is just insane. Next, they’ll say that if you don’t replace meat with bugs you hate the environment and the Third World, etc. Just wait…

  • American1969

    We’ll start eating bugs when the leftist hypocrites do it first. Until then, give me a beautiful, juicy bovine with a nice side of asparagus or a nice salad.
    And if the environazis don’t shut up, we could slap them on the grill instead! Hear it tastes like pork. Fewer idiots to screw up the Gene Pool.
    Leftist thinking is a psychotic mental disorder.

  • Lily

    As someone who’s actually tried SixFoods’ products, I can say with confidence that this article is pretty off the mark. Their chocolate “chirp” cookies taste exactly like chocolate chip cookies — you can’t taste all the extra protein that’s been added to it. The kids at the fair they were at absolutely loved them. I trust that their chips are just as good. I don’t really see what’s wrong with healthier cookies that still taste just like cookies.

    Also, I wouldn’t really call myself a “leftist”…