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A new European Union regulation dated January 3 now allows crickets and the grain mold beetle to be processed in food. Since 2021, the mealworm—the larva of the flour beetle—and the migratory locust have received EU approval as novel foods. The EU’s website informs that there are eight more “applications for insects intended to be marketed in different forms.” Thus more and more insects could soon make it into our cereal, meats and other foods. This legislation is enabling a creepy infiltration of our food.
“Nobody will be forced to eat insects,” the European Commission tweeted on January 18. You know it’s bad if you read such a statement. The reality is that such regulations could make it hard to avoid them.
It’s hard to miss the constant propaganda telling us that eating meat is bad for us and for the climate. Eating bugs is increasingly promoted as a protein alternative.
“The consumption of insects … contributes positively to the environment and to health and livelihoods,” a European Commission statement reads. “The environmental benefits of rearing insects for food are founded on the high feed conversion efficiency of insects, less greenhouse gas emissions, less use of water and arable lands, and the use of insect-based bioconversion as a marketable solution for reducing food waste.”
The new law says the addition of insects must be labeled close to where the ingredients are if mixed under other regular produce. Thus, one could say, everyone still has the choice to eat them or not. But we should beware where these steps are leading. Today you can bypass the bug and vegetarian “meat” aisle, but in the future, this might get harder. Not only are those sections getting longer, but also, the real meat section may soon have creepy infiltrators.
In 2019, Fox News wrote: “Maggots Will Be Added to Sausage, Specialty Foods as Meat Alternative, Scientists Claim.” Food scientists at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, were incorporating insects such as maggots and locusts into specialty foods. At what point will their experiment land on your plate?
“An overpopulated world is going to struggle to find enough protein unless people are willing to open their minds, and stomachs, to a much broader notion of food,” meat science professor Dr. Louwrens Hoffman told Fox News. “Would you eat a commercial sausage made from maggots? What about other insect larvae and even whole insects like locusts? The biggest potential for sustainable protein production lies with insects and new plant sources.”
This might soon become a self-fulfilled prophecy in Europe. More and more farms are being forced to shut down to meet EU climate change regulations. It’s no coincidence that more and more bugs are, at the same time, permitted to make it into food. The Word Economic Forum found as many as five ways that eating bugs can reduce climate change, so their goal is to get as much of it into foods as they can. We are now seeing the first regulations in Europe to allow for that. If future regulations allow or even demand a certain percentage of insects in every burger sold in supermarkets, it will be tough to find 100 percent meat options.
Growing up in Germany, I have had my own experience with trying to find 100 percent beef or chicken. Though I am not a Jew by heritage or traditional belief, I do believe it necessary to follow God’s laws regarding clean and unclean meats outlined in Leviticus 11. But avoiding pork in Germany was incredibly difficult. At any local event with food carts, you can’t buy a sausage or burger—all have pork in them; or if you ask about it, the sellers won’t know and give you a strange look. Order a pasta or a salad, and it is sprinkled with bacon. So you have to get your sausage from the store. But even there you will have a hard time finding one without pork as one of its ingredients.
Why do manufacturers do this? Maybe it’s cheaper. Germany is the biggest pork producer in Europe. But given Germany’s history of murdering 6 million Jews in just one period and persecuting and killing them in previous centuries, would it not be appropriate to at least attempt to make their lives easier? But the opposite is the case.
Now imagine you have to check for every insect that could be part of the food you’d like to purchase. Or worse, you have to avoid them all because 100 percent meat has been outlawed. Considering today’s headlines, this doesn’t seem far-fetched. Locusts are one of the few insects the Bible classifies as clean. The vast majority of other insects are unclean. Thus, obeying these laws and living a healthy lifestyle that includes meats may become harder and harder.
This trend toward demonizing meat is nothing new. In The Nazi War on Cancer, Robert N. Proctor writes: “Nazi nutritionists mounted a frontal attack on Germans’ excessive consumption of meat, sweets and fat, and argued for a return to ‘more natural’ foods such as cereals, fresh fruit and vegetables.” This was part of their effort to gain absolute control over citizens. Nazi slogans from the time read: “Your body belongs to the nation! Your body belongs to the führer! You have the duty to be healthy! Food is not a private matter!” Today, they say it’s for the climate, but it is the same war against meats.
Last month, German international discount retailer chain Lidl announced that it will significantly reduce the proportion of animal products it offers because “there is no second planet.”
No matter where this trend is heading and no matter how many bugs will be in future burgers, we must see the bigger picture. We are living in a world hostile toward God and His laws (Romans 8:7). That includes God’s health laws outlined in Leviticus 11. God specifically shows that the eating of certain meats is good. He also condemns the eating of certain bugs. God calls unclean foods an “abomination.” Mankind today has rejected those laws and calls the abomination a delight.
Anytime the Bible forbids something, mankind does it. Anytime the Bible commands something, mankind does it not. The Bible says: You shall not eat all bugs. Mankind says: You shall eat bugs.
Though many people are upset about bugs being forced into their diet, they themselves have rejected God’s laws and thus invited such curses to increasingly befall modern society. To learn more, read “Is the Old Testament Reliable?”
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