by Laura Dodsworth, Daily Sceptic:
If you found a worm in your sliced bread you would be horrified. You would probably share photos and outrage on social media and return the loaf to the shop you bought it from.
Consider then that mealworm powder has just been approved by the European Union as a novel food ingredient and is now legally allowed to constitute up to 4% of food products like bread, biscuits, cakes, cheese, pasta and potato-based snacks.
But why mealworms? Why bread? And why now?
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Mealworms, the larvae of darkling beetles, are presented as an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional livestock, as they are said to have a lower carbon footprint and require fewer resources to farm.
The problem is we don’t want to eat bugs and creepy crawlies. It’s fair to say that despite the almost total lack of demand, supranational organisations like the United Nations, and entities such as the World Economic Forum, along with celebrities and TV cookery programmes, have all jumped on the insect bandwagon, hailing them as the future of food.
The Mandible in the Door
As a 2022 study entitled ‘Consumers’ acceptance of the first novel insect food approved in the European Union: Predictors of yellow mealworm chips consumption’ says, most European consumers “react with disgust” to insect-based food. This is apparently our fault for having “neophobia” (fear of the new), rather than being justifiably ill-disposed to eating things which squirm through waste, effluence and rotting bodies.
As Patrick Fagan and I wrote in Free Your Mind, the push for ‘edible insects’ is a prime example of nudging and psychological manipulation. Since we won’t make the ‘right’ choice by ourselves, we must be sneakily influenced, incentivised, tricked and manipulated to be sensible little serfs and eat bugs.
Breads, pasta and snacks are well-liked, common and tasty foods, and so are the ideal place to hide a few insects, or at least their powdered forms. As the study says, “the inclusion of insects as ingredients in familiar and appreciated foods such as cookies and chips with preferred flavours can be another step toward their acceptance”.
And then there is the selection of the mealworm as ingredient. I challenge you to salivate and smack your lips at this:
Yet, consider the name. The insects currently on offer as novel foods tend to have some connection to food terminology, where mealworms remind us of meals and crickets are phonetically similar to chicken. Both are less offensive than some of their insect-world competitors. The propagandists don’t try to get us to eat cockroaches, spiders or wasps, though all three are equally as fit (or not) for consumption as crickets.
Despite this, mealworms and crickets don’t yet fit into our cultural nutritional lexicon. Grinding their bones, or lack thereof, and making our bread with them is one way to disguise them.
Another is to take tiny insect-sized steps, one at a time, and hope we don’t notice the revolting ruse. It’s here that the foot in the door — or rather the mandible in the door — technique comes into play. We are to be gradually accustomed to the idea of eating creepy crawlies by way of slow, subtle increments. 4% worm flour? You might just about risk it for a triple chocolate chip cookie. And from there to 8%. Then 20%. And on and on, until one day your favourite cookies are replaced in the supermarket aisle with a bag of mealworm crisps.
