Russia will eat the bugs

According to reports.

No WEF logo though, so it’s different and okay.

It’s 2035, and the peasants of the world—sorry, “cherished zero net worth stakeholders”—toil all day at their local clot-shot factories in exchange for digital Central Bank tokens, which can only be used to purchase cricket-quiche and bottles of thirst-quenching mRNA juice.

Hurry now—your digital tokens will expire if you don’t buy your quiche by 5:30pm.

It’s nothing glamorous, of course; but it’s a living….

But wait just a second. If you don’t like eating insects, can’t you apply for bug-asylum in Russia?

Maybe. But actually: Nope.

This is not the import substitution we were hoping for. (source)

Thank you to Nakanune.ru (and a Macedonia-based top secret Edward informant for the tip) for this scrumptious hot scoop:

In Russia, they proposed to produce products with a food additive from crickets as part of import substitution. The cricket meal company believes that the high protein content of the supplement will allow it to compete with meat.

Forage crickets are bred in the Chekhov district of the Moscow region. Farmers say that crickets are first euthanized and then ground into flour. This happens after the insects lay their eggs in the peat bog.

The head of Chekhov’s famous cricket hatchery was quoted as saying that his tasty bug-paste would help ensure “food security in the region.” Which is very true, because as everyone knows, Russia suffers from a severe lack of arable land—in fact, there’s barely any land at all.

In its own rendition of this delicious story, News.ru expertly explained:

The world has been discussing the need to abandon animal meat and switch to insect protein for several years now under the pretext of combating the reduction of carbon emissions. In particular, earlier scientists discovered that grasshoppers, ants and caterpillars contain a huge amount of antioxidants and can become a complete substitute for meat.

But will Russia go full-bug or half-bug or just a little bit bug?

It’s too soon to say. But there are certainly reasons for optimism.

In May 2022, Lenta.ru reported the creation of the country’s first cricket farm in Novosibirsk; the establishment’s cricket-flour was billed as a healthy and cost-efficient additive for animal feed.

So in a span of less than three months, we went from “the crickets are for cattle” to “the crickets are for you.” Scammed again?

The good news is that Russia banned Bill Gates’ favorite artificial meat last year as part of the never-ending Sanctions War. The bad news is that Russia is developing its own artificial meat:

At the end of 2019,  artificial meat was grown for the first time in Russia. The development was carried out by the Ochakovsky food ingredients plant. The experimenters estimated the obtained 40 grams of beef from a Petri dish at 900 thousand rubles. They promise to reduce the cost of production so that by 2023 laboratory beef will appear in stores.

In Russia, you can try vegetable meat at TGI Friday’s, Pizza Hut, and Teremok. You can also buy a semi-finished product in grocery stores: Azbuka Vkusa, Globus, Vkusville.

Whatever. They can’t force you to eat cricket-casserole, can they? Debatable.