Scientists will use UK school children as guinea pigs, having organized workshops where bugs will be served as food to see their response to eating “alternative proteins.”
“We want the children to think about alternative proteins as real things for now, rather than just as foods for the future, so trying some of these foods is central to the research,” said Cardiff University professor Christopher Bear.
“Although edible insects are for now not sold widely in the UK, they form part of the diet of around 2 billion people worldwide. Much of this is in parts of the world where they are part of long-standing culinary traditions. And they are increasingly popular elsewhere.”
According to researchers, the pilot program will see four schools in Wales try to normalize eating bugs and hope to persuade parents to adopt the change of diet in the home to help promote a ‘greener’ United Kingdom by reducing meat consumption.
Additionally, the insect product on the menu, VeXo, is conveniently designed to appear like minced meat, which will likely play a role in whether kids buy into it.
According to the headteacher of Roch Community Primary School in Pembrokeshire (one of the four schools that will soon feed students insects), he believes that children share his concerns over “sustainable development” — I wonder why that is.
He further welcomes the opportunity to help his students develop “critical thinking” to “make sense” of confusing decisions, including whether to eat bugs or not and “sustainable citizenship.”
“At the school, we recognize the important connection between our local community, food production and wider global issues surrounding sustainable development. We know these issues are important to children but also difficult to make sense of and can often be confusing for them.”
“We welcome the opportunity to work with academics from Cardiff and UWE to explore these issues and support children in developing critical thinking around sustainable citizenship,” said Evans.
As reported by The Counter Signal, the UK’s decision to phase out meat consumption and replace it with insects is part of a broader 2030 to 2050 agenda that will see nearly all consumption reduced (including energy consumption), red meat outright banned, as well as air travel and shipping banned by 2050.
If you want to read an overview of a government-commissioned report on the 2050 climate change agenda, you can do so by clicking here.
By Thomas Lambert, Guest writer
