From 4chan to international politics, a bug-eating conspiracy theory goes mainstream
In mid-March, a far-right Dutch member of parliament named Thierry Baudet tweeted "WE WILL NOT EAT THE BUGS" accompanied by a photo of himself holding a microphone in one hand and pouring golden mealworms out of a bag in the other.
Earlier in the month, Poland's ruling nationalist party Law and Justice falsely alleged that the opposition Civic Platform was trying to push citizens into eating worms, prompting the opposition to hit back with a similar accusation.
Those are just some of several instances of European right-wing politicians lobbing a conspiracy theory that elites want people to eat bugs. The accusations arrived shortly after the European Union approved mealworms and crickets as food ingredients.
Across the Atlantic, American right-wing pundits and influencers decry a similar plot. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits small amounts of insect matter to be included in foods.
"The ruling class really, really wants us to eat bugs," conservative commentator Michael Knowles said in ain January of 2022, waving a printout of a Bloomberg titled "Why Bugs Must Be a Bigger Part of the Human Food Chain." The story he referred and on insects' ability to process human food waste, rather than as food for human consumption.
