Conspiracy theorists are trying to influence European election campaigns with disinformation and lies. Much of the fabrication comes from Moscow, but plenty is homegrown.
If media campaigns in more than a dozen European countries were to be believed, the European Union (EU) intends to force citizens to eat insects instead of meat.
The claim has touched nerves, especially in Italy, where variations of it have been revived and splashed across billboards during European elections to pit Brussels against mama’s special sauce.
But consumers of this claim are being fed pure nonsense, an example of countless fabrications launched or adopted by candidates seeking political gain at the cost of the truth.
The fake insect-food narrative, which first surfaced last year in a number of EU countries, has proven so popular with malign actors both within and outside the bloc that they’ve brought it back for the European election cycle to try to discredit pro-EU candidates.
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But no one should be surprised that malignant actors want to impact Europe’s election cycle, with 720 seats up for grabs for the next five-year term in the European Parliament and many national elections taking place simultaneously as part of a record year for elections worldwide.
The EDMO reports a record-high amount of disinformation ahead of the vote about universally controversial issues like migration, agricultural policy and climate change, including even the resurrection of fake stories from years past, such as COVID-19 conspiracies.
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Funny, this is actually the second thread in the past couple of days where eating insects has come up for unrelated reasons. I’ll repeat what I said in the other thread on a few points:
We should be eating cricket flour. […] And if we got over the “ick” factor, our carb-filled food would be a lot healthier.
No, you won’t be picking legs out of your teeth.
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I’ve actually eaten insects when it’s clear that they’re insects. I once even bought some from a Thai grocery and cooked them myself just to see if I could. I’m not a great cook, so it wasn’t exactly a meal with four Michelin stars, but most of it wasn’t too bad. The longicorn beetle larvae tasted nutty and the ants tasted citrusy (I assume because of the formic acid). I didn’t like the giant water bug though. It did look like a massive cockroach, which didn’t help, but it also had a sort of juniper/gin flavor and I don’t like that flavor.
I’ve also had Oaxacan Mexican crickets in chili and lime. They used to sell them on street stalls near Dodger Stadium when I lived in L.A. Pretty good.
What’s funny is that people who don’t blink an eye at eating shrimp, crab or lobster can’t handle the idea of eating arthropods.
Insects can be farmed sustainably, they are high in protein and many other nutrients, and there’s really nothing wrong with their tastes unless you don’t like the same flavors in other foods.
We should be eating cricket flour. […] And if we got over the “ick” factor, our carb-filled food would be a lot healthier.
The length people will go to, to not eat a goddamned legume.
