It’s not uncommon for insect parts to accidentally make it into processed foods in plant production. However, Singapore has gone one step further and approved the packaging and sale of 16 species of insects as foodstuff.1 In this short video, actress Nicole Kidman demonstrates her secret talent — eating fried insects and live worms.
In 2017, Business Insider reported that on average one person accidentally eats 140,000 bits of bug every year.2 Food with the highest number of allowed bug bits is hops, used to brew beer. The FDA allows up to 25,000 bits for every 100 grams of hops. Exactly who is counting 25,000 bits of bug for every 2.5 cups of hops?
Interestingly, in 2017, the Business Insider article ended with “We’d better get used to it. After all, insects are the future of food!” Also in 2017,3 a Business Insider article sponsored by Cargill, predicted that “thanks to climate change” the foods of the future will include bugs, beans, GMOs, invasive sea creatures, and “bloody vegan burgers.”
Insect-as-food promoters claim humans have a long history of eating insects and “If you think eating insects is gross, you may be in the cultural minority.” Yet, historical mentions of eating insects are mostly for survival and not as a delicacy. National Geographic notes, “Ten thousand years ago hunters and gatherers ate bugs to survive.”4
The Smithsonian5 notes that in Africa, where poverty is extreme, locusts are consistently eaten, and military survival guides recommend insects “as a perfect alternative when other food sources are not available.” As globalists push for greater control over the food supply, they are also pushing to normalize dehumanizing and gross food options.
Singapore Approves 16 Insect Species To Be Sold as Food
In October 2022, Yahoo! News6 reported the Singapore food agency (SFA) was in the process of considering approving insect imports from 10 insect food products or farming companies for human or animal consumption. The media release went on to say that the SFA had conducted scientific reviews and assessed the species of insects it would allow for use in the country.
It listed some of the insects that had traditionally been served in parts of Asia, such as crickets and silkworm pupae. After the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) promoted insects for animal feed and human consumption, commercial interest grew. From October 5, 2022, to December 4, 2022, when the SFA was open to public commentary, it received a mere 53 responses in a country with 5.9 million people.7
April 7, 2023, The Straits Times8 reported that 16 species of insects had received the green light from the SFA and would be released for human consumption in the last half of 2023. The companies importing the insects must provide proof that the insects are farmed under food safety controls and that the substrate used to feed the insects is not contaminated.
Additionally, the insect products will also be subjected to food safety testing and treatment to kill pathogens. Food inspections will also be done to determine if the insects were packed and stored to prevent contamination.
The 16 species of insects approved for consumption could be either eaten directly or used to make snack items. In addition to the insects, the SFA is allowing silkworm cocoons, with the explanation that they are currently consumed in Malaysia and China. Insect species without a history of human consumption, no matter how recent the history, will be considered novel and approval must then go through a different framework.
One of those insects is the black soldier fly larvae that are currently used in Singapore to process food waste. The Straits Times writes, “The larvae consume up to four times their body weight in waste and, in turn, excrete frass, which is used as fertilizer. The larvae are used as fish and shrimp feed.”9
Insect Farming: Are Maggots on Your Menu?
As The Straits Times notes,10 the industry is unsure of how consumers will respond to eating insects. Chief executive and co-founder of Future Protein Solutions, Christopher Loew, told reporters his company is creating new ways to incorporate cricket protein to entice consumers to gobble up Gryllidae, the family of crickets that includes approximately 2,400 species of “leaping insects.”11
Loew believes that “a lot more education” is required for the public to accept eating insects. He added, “So it might take a while before these insects become mainstream at local restaurants.” The Times continued, “Globally, both high-end restaurants and casual eateries offering dishes with insects like crickets remain niche, so a lot more needs to be done to normalize insect consumption.”12
While the idea of eating insects for food may be repulsive, it’s apparent that globalists are intent on normalizing the behavior. One company planning a product launch is hoping to generate enough buzz about the product to stir up demand. Startup company Altimate Nutrition is working together with a manufacturer in Thailand to deliver flavored cricket protein bars to Singapore.
They’ve also developed a partnership with the House of Seafood restaurant for insect-based recipes. Gavriel Tan, co-founder of Altimate Nutrition noted that some consumers find eating insects intriguing while others are repulsed. The company intends to address this issue by “organizing workshops and seminars to raise awareness about the benefits of insect-based foods.”13
William Chen from Nanyang Technological University notes that while people in Asia are used to insects, eating “whole insects” in restaurants “may still be challenging due to the general negative perception of insects.” Chen continued:14
“One way to integrate insects into our diet would be to add insect proteins into familiar foods such as pasta, with proper labeling. With no sight of the whole insects and no change in the taste — I can safely say this after tasting spaghetti bolognese made with mealworm protein-based pasta — consumers would slowly accept insect-based foods.”
Will Eating Bugs Become Cool?
The idea of eating insect-based foods is cloaked in “sustainable” rhetoric by globalists, which they hope to elevate to foods “the cool kids” eat as Nicole Kidman demonstrates in the video above. One top player in the cabal, the World Economic Forum, posted an article in June 202115 categorized under “food security” in which they promote the use of insects writing we “need to give insects the role they deserve in our food systems.”
They justify this proposal by saying it will address an impending food crisis. Companies have jumped on the bandwagon in the last five to 10 years and the insect farming industry is estimated to be growing at a rate of 27.8% each year.16 Aggrotech startups have seized on this financial opportunity and refined the cost-effectiveness of insect farming, also called “minilivestock” farming.
The idea that meat-eating mammals could survive on insects was taught to children in the 1994 Disney film “The Lion King.” A meerkat and warthog teach Simba (a lion) to eat live insects instead of killing prey as they sing “Hakuna Matata,” which is a Swahili phrase meaning “there are no problems; don’t worry about it.”17
This is exactly what the globalists would like you to do — there are no problems, don’t worry about it, globalists will take care of your food supply. You only have to learn how to eat bugs and drink sewer water.
‘Green Agenda’ Includes Bugs, Cannibalism and Reclaimed Water
Much of the supposed “inspiration” behind promoting unnatural diets is justified by a desire to save the planet. While sustainability is admirable, it is crucial to realize that the “green agenda” currently promoted is nothing but a ruse and scare tactic to bring people to the point of accepting living conditions that would otherwise be unacceptable.
The agenda is based on cherry-picked flawed ideas. For example, the idea that nitrogen fertilizer is a pollutant that can only be reined in by eliminating farming is one of the cherry-picked ‘green agenda’ ideas. Yes, nitrogen fertilizer is a pollutant, but there are regenerative solutions that continue to allow people to eat meat, fruits and vegetables without eliminating farming. Without farmers, the globalists want you to eat insects, weeds and possibly, each other.
Coffee the Christian way: Promised Grounds
Although it sounds crazy, they have already started trying to normalize cannibalism. Lab-grown human steak was introduced in December 202018 and featured as “art” at the Design Museum in London, U.K. The creator of the “Ouroboros Steak” — a reference to the ancient symbol of a snake that devours its tail and is reborn from itself — claimed the installation was a critique against the meat industry.
Taking this one step further, a company called BiteLabs claimed to plan to sell artisanal salami made from lab-grown celebrity flesh. On their website,19 which appears to have been taken down in late 2022, they stated the intention to collect biopsy samples from celebrities, isolate the muscle cells and then grow the celebrity meat using a proprietary bioreactor. The flesh would then be cured, dried, aged and spiced according to Italian tradition.
In January 2022, IFLScience20 followed up on the story and noted that “it’s perfectly possible” to create salami from cloned celebrity meet. While the website has been taken down, the Facebook page21 remains where the company claims “We’ve never been so close to celebrities — until now.”
Another example of an ongoing effort to normalize cannibalism is a 2018 article published in the journal Nature,22 which promoted the rejuvenating effects of drinking young people’s blood. A 2.5-liter order was said to cost about $8,000 at the time.23
In a bit of predictive programming, the 1973 film “Soylent Green” — in which the protagonist realizes the government food being handed out is made from humans — was set in the year 2022.24
Another gross answer that globalists have proposed is drinking reclaimed sewage water. In 1965, Frank Herbert imagined recycled urine in his novel “Dune.” In an article in the Verge in 2021,25 the writer laments the fact that the remake of the movie “flushed away a chance to talk about wastewater,” since the film director and writer didn’t include it.
In May 2021, Bloomberg announced that “The Future of Water Is Recycled Sewage, And We’ll All Be Drinking It.”26 In Singapore, the future is now. Singapore’s National Water Agency uses a NEWater process to recycle sewage water in five plant operations.27 California doesn’t have to wait28 on the future since the government has already started a toilet-to-tap transition in the state.
Coming full circle, you may unintentionally participate in cannibalism in the coming years. According to the Cremation Association of North America,29 several states use alkaline hydrolysis and water to accelerate natural decomposition. This leaves a liquid effluent that is “discharged with all other wastewater and is a welcome addition to the water systems.”
The organization claims that there is no tissue or DNA left when the process is completed. What could possibly go wrong when water used to dissolve human remains is flushed into the sewer system and then the same water is repurposed for drinking water? Even if it is technically symbolic, this is also a form of cannibalism.
Insect Allies Are Anything But
The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) is also on the insect bandwagon. In 2016 they began a project called “Insect Allies”30 designed to infect insects with a genetically modified virus that could edit mature plants in real-time. This is different from the controversial release of genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida and four counties in California to suppress wild mosquito populations.
In the 2016 release,31 the agency stated that the program could provide an “alternative to pesticides, selective breeding, slash-and-burn clearing and quarantine, which are often ineffective against rapidly emerging threats and are not suited to securing mature plants.”
The release goes on to say that since the beginning of the program, the teams have been working on molecular and synthetic biology, seeking technical breakthroughs in plant virus gene editing and disease vector biology.
Yet, the short-term and long-term effects on plants, people and animals are unknown and it may be that DARPA doesn’t care. The first DARPA-funded “Insect Allies” paper was published in 2020 in which the researchers stated:32
“Mutant progeny are recovered in the next generation at frequencies ranging from 65 to 100%; up to 30% of progeny derived from plants infected with a virus expressing three sgRNAs have mutations in all three targeted loci.”
In other words, the mosquitoes released into the environment pass along their mutations to the next generations, leaving questions about what happens to animals and humans bitten by those insects, wild insects that mate with infected insects, and the animals and humans who eat the plants and insects.
Once genetically mutated insects are released into the wild, it seems unreasonable to assume that insect farms, producing edible insects for human consumption, would not also be contaminated. Yet would the integration of mutated insects be considered contamination?
- 1, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 The Straits Times, April 7, 2023
- 2 Business Insider, June 21, 2017
- 3 Business Insider, February 6, 2017
- 4 National Geographic, July 15, 2004
- 5 Smithsonian, Insects as Food for Humans
- 6 Yahoo! News, October 17, 2022
- 7 WorldoMeter, Singapore
- 11 Britannica, Crickets
- 15 World Economic Forum, June 12, 2021
- 16 Hive Life, October 8, 2020
- 17 Merriam Webster, Hakuna Matata
- 18 The New York Times, December 7, 2020
- 19 BiteLabs
- 20 IFLScience, January 18, 2022
- 21 Facebook, BiteLabs
- 22 Nature September 5, 2018
- 23 New York Post September 10, 2018
- 24 Radical Media, July 27, 2022
- 25 The Verge, November 5, 2021
- 26 Bloomberg, May 19, 2021
- 27 Pub.gov.sg, NEWater
- 28 Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2022
- 29 Cremation Association of North America, Alkaline Hydrolysis, Overview
- 30, 31 DARPA, Insect Allies
- 32 Nature Plants, 2020;6
Article cross-posted from Dr. Mercola’s blog.
Five Things New “Preppers” Forget When Getting Ready for Bad Times Ahead
The preparedness community is growing faster than it has in decades. Even during peak times such as Y2K, the economic downturn of 2008, and Covid, the vast majority of Americans made sure they had plenty of toilet paper but didn’t really stockpile anything else.
Things have changed. There’s a growing anxiety in this presidential election year that has prompted more Americans to get prepared for crazy events in the future. Some of it is being driven by fearmongers, but there are valid concerns with the economy, food supply, pharmaceuticals, the energy grid, and mass rioting that have pushed average Americans into “prepper” mode.
There are degrees of preparedness. One does not have to be a full-blown “doomsday prepper” living off-grid in a secure Montana bunker in order to be ahead of the curve. In many ways, preparedness isn’t about being able to perfectly handle every conceivable situation. It’s about being less dependent on government for as long as possible. Those who have proper “preps” will not be waiting for FEMA to distribute emergency supplies to the desperate masses.
Below are five things people new to preparedness (and sometimes even those with experience) often forget as they get ready. All five are common sense notions that do not rely on doomsday in order to be useful. It may be nice to own a tank during the apocalypse but there’s not much you can do with it until things get really crazy. The recommendations below can have places in the lives of average Americans whether doomsday comes or not.
Note: The information provided by this publication or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice.
Secured Wealth
Whether in the bank or held in a retirement account, most Americans feel that their life’s savings is relatively secure. At least they did until the last couple of years when de-banking, geopolitical turmoil, and the threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies reared their ugly heads.
It behooves Americans to diversify their holdings. If there’s a triggering event or series of events that cripple the financial systems or devalue the U.S. Dollar, wealth can evaporate quickly. To hedge against potential turmoil, many Americans are looking in two directions: Crypto and physical precious metals.
There are huge advantages to cryptocurrencies, but there are also inherent risks because “virtual” money can become challenging to spend. Add in the push by central banks and governments to regulate or even replace cryptocurrencies with their own versions they control and the risks amplify. There’s nothing wrong with cryptocurrencies today but things can change rapidly.
As for physical precious metals, many Americans pay cash to keep plenty on hand in their safe. Rolling over or transferring retirement accounts into self-directed IRAs is also a popular option, but there are caveats. It can often take weeks or even months to get the gold and silver shipped if the owner chooses to close their account. This is why Genesis Gold Group stands out. Their relationship with the depositories allows for rapid closure and shipping, often in less than 10 days from the time the account holder makes their move. This can come in handy if things appear to be heading south.
Lots of Potable Water
One of the biggest shocks that hit new preppers is understanding how much potable water they need in order to survive. Experts claim one gallon of water per person per day is necessary. Even the most conservative estimates put it at over half-a-gallon. That means that for a family of four, they’ll need around 120 gallons of water to survive for a month if the taps turn off and the stores empty out.
Being near a fresh water source, whether it’s a river, lake, or well, is a best practice among experienced preppers. It’s necessary to have a water filter as well, even if the taps are still working. Many refuse to drink tap water even when there is no emergency. Berkey was our previous favorite but they’re under attack from regulators so the Alexapure systems are solid replacements.
For those in the city or away from fresh water sources, storage is the best option. This can be challenging because proper water storage containers take up a lot of room and are difficult to move if the need arises. For “bug in” situations, having a larger container that stores hundreds or even thousands of gallons is better than stacking 1-5 gallon containers. Unfortunately, they won’t be easily transportable and they can cost a lot to install.
Water is critical. If chaos erupts and water infrastructure is compromised, having a large backup supply can be lifesaving.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies
There are multiple threats specific to the medical supply chain. With Chinese and Indian imports accounting for over 90% of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States, deteriorating relations could make it impossible to get the medicines and antibiotics many of us need.
Stocking up many prescription medications can be hard. Doctors generally do not like to prescribe large batches of drugs even if they are shelf-stable for extended periods of time. It is a best practice to ask your doctor if they can prescribe a larger amount. Today, some are sympathetic to concerns about pharmacies running out or becoming inaccessible. Tell them your concerns. It’s worth a shot. The worst they can do is say no.
If your doctor is unwilling to help you stock up on medicines, then Jase Medical is a good alternative. Through telehealth, they can prescribe daily meds or antibiotics that are shipped to your door. As proponents of medical freedom, they empathize with those who want to have enough medical supplies on hand in case things go wrong.
Energy Sources
The vast majority of Americans are locked into the grid. This has proven to be a massive liability when the grid goes down. Unfortunately, there are no inexpensive remedies.
Those living off-grid had to either spend a lot of money or effort (or both) to get their alternative energy sources like solar set up. For those who do not want to go so far, it’s still a best practice to have backup power sources. Diesel generators and portable solar panels are the two most popular, and while they’re not inexpensive they are not out of reach of most Americans who are concerned about being without power for extended periods of time.
Natural gas is another necessity for many, but that’s far more challenging to replace. Having alternatives for heating and cooking that can be powered if gas and electric grids go down is important. Have a backup for items that require power such as manual can openers. If you’re stuck eating canned foods for a while and all you have is an electric opener, you’ll have problems.
Don’t Forget the Protein
When most think about “prepping,” they think about their food supply. More Americans are turning to gardening and homesteading as ways to produce their own food. Others are working with local farmers and ranchers to purchase directly from the sources. This is a good idea whether doomsday comes or not, but it’s particularly important if the food supply chain is broken.
Most grocery stores have about one to two weeks worth of food, as do most American households. Grocers rely heavily on truckers to receive their ongoing shipments. In a crisis, the current process can fail. It behooves Americans for multiple reasons to localize their food purchases as much as possible.
Long-term storage is another popular option. Canned foods, MREs, and freeze dried meals are selling out quickly even as prices rise. But one component that is conspicuously absent in shelf-stable food is high-quality protein. Most survival food companies offer low quality “protein buckets” or cans of meat, but they are often barely edible.
Prepper All-Naturals offers premium cuts of steak that have been cooked sous vide and freeze dried to give them a 25-year shelf life. They offer Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin among others.
Having buckets of beans and rice is a good start, but keeping a solid supply of high-quality protein isn’t just healthier. It can help a family maintain normalcy through crises.
Prepare Without Fear
With all the challenges we face as Americans today, it can be emotionally draining. Citizens are scared and there’s nothing irrational about their concerns. Being prepared and making lifestyle changes to secure necessities can go a long way toward overcoming the fears that plague us. We should hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst. And if the worst does come, then knowing we did what we could to be ready for it will help us face those challenges with confidence.
