The Risks of Eating Commercially-farmed Insects

Written by John O'Sullivan on August 16, 2022. Posted in Current News

Should you eat insects as a staple part of your diet? Not according to the best peer-reviewed research. Below we reveal why scientists urge caution against eating insects.

Contrary to what you’ve been hearing in the mainstream media, there is little to no scientific data about the long term effects on the human immune system from eating factory farmed insects.

In fact, the scientific literature warns of the known risk of allergenic reaction from eating insects, which can also significantly worsen a range of established ailments. Moreover, there is a proven associated risk of poisoning by microbial pathogens and insecticides. [1]

One study found that insects have the same capacity to trigger allergic reactions as do crustaceans (like shrimp and lobster).

Another study published by International Journal of Biological Macromolecules Volume 97 (April 2017) showed that chitin, a key constituent in insects “acts as a threat to other organisms.” [2]

In the aforementioned study, the authors explain that “Chitin, a polysaccharide with particular abundance in fungi, nematodes and arthropods is immunogenic.”

The scientists explain why chitins in your regular diet are to be avoided:

“In keeping with the basic rule of survival, the self-origin (own body component) chitins and chitinases are protective, but that of non-self origin (from other organisms) are detrimental to health.”  [emphasis added]

In case you’re wondering what ‘immunogenic‘ means pay close attention: Immunogenicity is when a foreign substance, such as an antigen [or insect] provokes an immune response in the body of a human or other animal. Read more here: What is Chitin?

Historically, our ancestors have long known that, eating insects is a last resort to stave off starvation. The Holy Bible warns us eating insects is “detestable” and are known down the ages as “famine food” – eaten in times of food scarcity or when purchasing and harvesting “conventional foods” is problematic.

The cherry-picking mainstream media would have you believe billions in the third world happily eat insects with no ill effects. But the truth is there have been instances of severe reactions. In the early 1950s, it was found that a large number of people living in Malaysia had been infected by an intestinal “fluke,” or an infestation of harmful bacteria, which they had gotten from consuming dragon flies.

Deliberately Degrading Our Natural Immunity?

Immunogenicity typically relates to vaccines, where the injection of an antigen provokes an immune response against the pathogen, protecting the organism from future exposure. Among the possible maladies triggered by bug munching includes a deluge of inflammatory cytokines, which injure organs (leading to asthma, atopic dermatitis etc.), and in persistent situations, this may lead to death (multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus erythromatosus (SLE), cancer, etc.).

If you have already suffered adverse reactions to COVID19 ‘vaccines’ then it may be wise you seek independent medical advice before eating insects.

Our Innate Aversion to Entomophagy

Among the big corporate influencers attempting to bring about a change in our eating habits is McDonald’s. As part of their virtue signaling insanity to turn us all into permanently sick critter crunchers they are promoting this unsavory practice in their 200-page book, ‘Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed security.’ [3]

This one-sided publication, which does not offer explanation of the risks of consuming chitins, was spawned by leftist minds at the Laboratory of Entomology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and spouts all the usual ‘sky is falling’ fearmongering about climate change and the non-problem of ‘over population.’

The Preface tells you all you need to know about the Malthusian agenda behind it all:

“It is widely accepted that by 2050 the world will host 9 billion people. To accomodate this number, current food production will need to almost double. Land is scarce and expanding the area devoted to farming is rarely a viable or sustainable option. Oceans are overfished and climate change and related water shortages could have profound implications for food production. To meet the food and nutrition challenges of today – there are nearly 1 billion chronically hungry people worldwide – and tomorrow, what we eat and how we produce it needs to be re-evaluated. Inefficiencies need to be rectified and food waste reduced. We need to find new ways of growing food.”

No mention anywhere in this biased book that the latest demographic trends predict that western societies are fast approaching a catastrophic population COLLAPSE through low reproductive rates.  It is also a lie that Mother Nature cannot feed us all. The slight rise in levels of atmospheric CO2 is actually greening the planet and BOOSTING crop yield. Carbon dioxide is plant food – not pollution.

In short, the empirical data proves the more we have of this trace gas (0.04 percent of the atmosphere) the better!

So Little Science About the Risks

In 2015 the European Food Safety Authority published their ‘Risk profile related to production and consumption of insects as food and feed’ cautioning against wholesale industrial farming of insects for mass human consumption. It warned of:

“….uncertainties (lack of knowledge) related to possible hazards when insects are used as food and feed and notes that there are no systematically collected data on animal and human consumption of insects. Studies on the occurrence of microbial pathogens of vertebrates as well as published data on hazardous chemicals in reared insects are scarce.” [4]

Even advocates of critter crunching are warning that there are inherent risks. A far more even-handed warning comes from the pro-bug chewing hinsectdeli.weebly.com which advises readers:

“Firstly, there is the risk of allergens. Whilst there is little evidence of allergic reactions from insect consumption, different geographic regions have different food traditions which may result in different threats. Therefore this needs to be considered when making insects available to a “naïve” population.

The described allergic reactions include a few cases of anaphylactic shock following the consumption of the Mopane caterpillar (Africa) and silkworm pupae  (China), it is suggested that the later is caused by the allergen arginine kinase (Belluco et al. 2013). Along with allergens there are the potential for anti-nutrient substances, although it is thought that the levels of these are so low that in humans they would not pose a threat (Rumpold & Schluter 2012).

There is also the potential for the growth of microbial fauna within an insects gut (Rumpold & Schluter 2012), however with the correct application of preservation and storage techniques such as refrigeration or boiling, this can be avoided (Belluco et al. 2013).

Pesticide accumulation within the edible insects, particularly wild insects is another possible threat (Rumpold & Schluter 2012). For example, following a disinfectant program in Thailand, insects were placed on the market resulting in health problems (Belluco et al. 2013).

Finally some insects produce toxins as a form of chemical defense which can bring about nausea or vomiting (Rumpold & Schluter 2012) and therefore it is important to be able to appropriately identify toxic and non toxic species. One particular toxic substance is steroids produced by beetles, which if ingested in high quantities can cause retardation, infertility, masculinisation, and liver cancer. Also cyanogenic substances found in Coleoptera and Lepidoptera can inhibit enzymes and therefore lead to the inhibition of important metabolic pathways in the body such as oxidative phosphorylation (Belluco et al. 2013).”

While another website promoting eating insects www.eatcrickster.com admits that it is the chitins, which interfere with the body’s ability to absorb and use protein, degrades our body’s ability to absorb nutrients:

“The exoskeleton, or “chitin,” of an insect has been found to have small amounts of these anti-nutrients….They can compromise the nutritional value of many foods, especially those made from plants (like rice or flour).”

So, beware mainstream media propaganda such as this one from MSN, which lambasts articles like mine for pointing out the risks. If you look closely at these apologists for monster-munching you will see they omit, or gloss over, the very real admissions in the peer-reviewed science literature that no reliable, peer-reviewed science yet exists addressing:

(a) the risks from mass consumption of insects

(b) allergenic/immunogenic danger to a mass-vaccinated population with compromised immune systems after untested COVID19 shots.

In fact, when savvy readers dig deeper, they find that the whole narrative for going over to an insect diet because of supposed food shortages (which are deliberately engineered) and the ‘harm’ to climate from ‘cow farts’ and livestock rearing is false.

Read: Five Signs Governments Are CREATING A Food Crisis.

Read: Dutch Farmers Protest Climate Mandates That Would Cut Livestock By 30percent

Smelling genocide anyone?

References:

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28007452/

[2] , Pages 331-338 title ‘Chitin and chitinase: Role in pathogenicity, allergenicity and health’

[3] https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/gwscorp/scale-for-good/CHICKEN%20i3253e.pdf

[4] https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4257

About John O’Sullivan John is CEO and co-founder (with Dr Tim Ball) of Principia Scientific International (PSI).  John is a seasoned science writer and legal analyst who assisted Dr Ball in defeating world leading climate expert, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann in the ‘science trial of the century‘. O’Sullivan is credited as the visionary who formed the original ‘Slayers’ group of scientists in 2010 who then collaborated in creating the world’s first full-volume debunk of the greenhouse gas theory plus their new follow-up book. John is also a Producer/Presenter at fast-growing TNT Radio. 

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