Starting Tuesday, the European Union (EU) will allow food producers to include cricket powder in flour-based products, despite mainstream left-wing outlets calling concerns about a worldwide push for populations to consume insects a “conspiracy.”
The European Food Safety Authority reviewed the use of partially defatted house cricket powder and found that mass market consumption of the material is “safe under the proposed conditions of use and use levels,” according to the regulation.
Cricket powder will now be approved for use in a variety of food items, including: “multigrain bread and rolls, crackers and breadsticks, cereal bars, dry pre-mixes for baked products, biscuits, dry stuffed and non-stuffed pasta-based products, sauces, processed potato products, legume- and vegetable- based dishes, pizza, pasta-based products, whey powder, meat analogues, soups and soup concentrates or powders, maize flour-based snacks, beer-like beverages, chocolate confectionary, nuts and oilseeds, snacks other than chips, and meat preparations.”
The application was submitted by Cricket One, a company that “is responsible for the farming practice of crickets while also innovating the highest quality and most sustainable ingredients for food, beverage, cosmetics, and pet food,” according to the company website. “Whatever your focus is, we are committed to working with you from an early idea stage, up until you have a finished product that will excite your customers.”
However, the regulation also noted the “limited published evidence on food allergy related to insects in general” and linked Acheta domesticus, the species of house cricket in question, to several “anaphylaxis events.”
The European Food Safety Authority concluded that “consumption of this novel food may trigger sensitisation,” recommending further study.
Due to the “inconclusive” evidence linking cricket powder to allergic reactions, the European Commission decided not to include specific labeling requirements in the EU list of authorized novel foods: “[C]onsidering that, to date, evidence directly linking the consumption of Acheta domesticus to cases of primary sensitisation and allergies is inconclusive, the Commission considers that no specific labelling requirements concerning the potential of Acheta domesticus to cause primary sensitization should be included in the Union list of authorised novel foods,” the regulation says.
The EU is comprised of 27 member countries.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) regularly calls for nations to ingest bugs, urging that “we need to give insects the role they deserve in our food systems” and celebrating the fact that “we might be eating insects soon.”
