(Planet Today) The United Kingdom is funding experiments to feed Africans insects. School-age children will be reportedly involved in one of the schemes as they will be eating the bugs in randomized trials.
U.K. Research and Innovation (UKRI), a non-governmental body affiliated with the British Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), is responsible for implementing two projects in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Zimbabwe project received a $320,000 grant. It seeks to know more about the potential of mopane worms (Gonimbrasia belina) as food.
Poor children aged seven to 11 in the town of Gwanda and the Zimbabwean capital Harare will be fed porridge mixed with mopane worms in their schools. According to researchers, G. belina contains high amounts of vitamins and minerals.
Meanwhile, roughly $55,000 worth of grant money from the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development (CAFOD) was allocated to the second project in the DRC. The project managed by UKRI seeks to promote the production of insects for human food and for use in the manufacture of animal feeds in the country’s North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.
Caterpillars, migratory locusts and black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens) were among the insects being pushed for human consumption in the DRC project, which began in March and is set to end in December.
CAFOD, however, clarified to the Guardian that claims of the DRC project encouraging people to eat insects were “completely wrong.” It explained that the local project sought to grow insects to feed fish, claiming that the bug-fed fishes would be richer in protein when consumed.
Globalist elites want to normalize eating bugs to control food supply
Edible insects have been touted as a more climate-friendly alternative to protein from livestock. However, the push to normalize eating bugs appears to be another bid by the globalist elites to control the food supply – most especially in Africa, which constantly faces food shortages.
Academic entomologist Dr. Sarah Beynon, who founded the Bug Farm in Pembrokeshire, defended the projects as “a sure way to save lives and improve nutrition of the poorest people on planet Earth.”
“We are also actively encouraging people in the developed world to include insects in their diets,” she added. “With a population that has an appetite set to far exceed the planetary limits, and with current agriculture decimating biodiversity and changing the climate, we have no option but to change how we produce and consume food.”
Meanwhile, a UKRI spokesperson said: “We support specific research projects with funding, but we anticipate that the learnings and knowledge gleaned will benefit citizens around the world, irrespective of their economic status.” UKRI also defended the protein and environmental benefits of consuming insects, citing global reports.
Food chemistry and technology professor Dr. Alberto Fiore, who heads the Zimbabwe project, said the country’s population relies on maize – low in protein, essential minerals, amino acids and fatty acids. He and his team formulated the porridge with mopane worms, local fruits and cereals such as sorghum and millet.
Consumer taste tests conducted in Scotland found that the caterpillar porridge was palatable, which served as the stepping stone for the team’s foray into Zimbabwe. A randomized trial is now in the works to assess if the children eating mopane worm porridge perform better in school and reach healthy weight targets.
Head over to CricketProtein.news for more about the push to normalize insect consumption.
Watch Dr. Sam Bailey talk about the campaign to feed schoolchildren with bugs below.
(Article by Arsenio Toledo republished from Citizens.news)
