“We Will Not Eat The Bugs”: People Outraged To Learn About Common Insect-Sourced Food Additive
A German app called Insekten Scanner scans the barcode of a food product to tell you whether it includes insect parts in the ingredients. The app, which was first developed in late 2023 and now has over 100,000 downloads, recently went viral on X after several viral posts caused outrage among Americans.
The account Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) posted a video on May 2 of a user in a German supermarket scanning items with the app, which they captioned “‘We will NOT eat the bugs’ has become reality.”
In the video, the user repeatedly receives the message “Insekten Gefunden” or “Insects Found.” Items include pudding cups, premade meals, and even chocolate candies. “Everything has bugs,” one user replied.
A German app went viral on X because it tells you if food products contain “insect derivative ingredients”
Image credits: Pexels/ Laura James
Part of the reason for the warning’s ubiquity is a food dye labeled E120, otherwise known as “carmine.” A pigment derived from carminic acid, E120, is used to give foods a bright red color.
Although carmine can be produced synthetically, it has traditionally been made from the boiled bodies of cochineal insects, which produce carminic acid to deter predators. It has been used to dye food and textiles since ancient times.
Manufacturers still use the insects for coloring in part because it’s cheaper but also because it allows them to label their products as “all natural.” In some cases, regulations on synthetic dyes may be more restrictive as well.
A video showed numerous food products being flagged due to the presence of carmine dye, which is made from cochineal insects
Image credits: Pexels/Pixabay
This was elaborated under most of the viral posts by X’s “context.” However, in many cases, this only fueled the fires of controversy. The post swiftly racked up 1.4 million views, 12,000 likes, and nearly 1,000 comments, with most debating the issue.
Many people used the app and its results as evidence of the “you will eat ze bugs” conspiracy theory, which the original poster referenced in their caption. Numerous comments alluded to “the WEF’s Agenda 2030” or Bill Gates.
Some simply didn’t like the idea of consuming insects. One response read: “This is my worst nightmare. Eating bugs.” Or more to the point: “Well, now, that’s disgusting.”
Many users felt the video was evidence of a conspiracy to get people to unwittingly consume insects, while others were simply disgusted
Image credits: Love Me When I’m Gone
Image credits: Love Me When I’m Gone
Image credits: Love Me When I’m Gone
Others believed that the bug dye wasn’t all that bad. “I’ll take insects over the random chemicals in American food,” one user replied. “Still better than synthetic Red 40 that is linked to ADHD symptoms,” said another.
Plus, people pointed out that many other cultures eat insects regularly. For instance, Adam J Bustamante gave his “hot take” that Colombian giant ants, which are considered a delicacy and aphrodisiac in the South American country, are “actually really good.”
Some were less concerned and pointed out that carmine dye has been used for thousands of years
The German people have come up with an app to tell them if the food they are buying has bug parts in it. 🤢 Well probably need this same app in America soon. pic.twitter.com/Iu0mdfRgP4
— ⚔️Love Me When I’m Gone⚔️ (@TSH2_) April 29, 2024
WEF conspiracy or not, the app does serve a useful purpose: consumer information. Many people have allergies to insect-sourced ingredients like carmine, and others may wish to avoid them due to religious or personal dietary restrictions, such as vegans and Kosher eaters.
As people increasingly want to know what’s in their highly processed food, similar apps have popped up. Insects in Food, developed in May 2023, functions similarly, and FoodCheckr, a Slovenian app developed in January 2024, provides insights into various food additives, including those sourced from insects. Both already have hundreds of downloads.
People are divided over the use of insect ingredients in food
I don't get it. People literally eat insects as a delicacy in some parts of the world. This isn't anything new? As someone else had said, I would rather eat insect parts than some of the other things that get added to foods.
It isn't actually a big deal. To understand why it's here on BP one need only look at the title "Americans are freaking out". Any story, any article, any picture, any bit of information that can pit BP users against, well, The U.S makes for good engagement. BP users, not all but certainly enough of them, like to take as many jabs at Americans as they can, lol. Also, the topic of the story itself is a nonstarter, because we're all very well aware that insect bits and pieces get into just about all the food we consume and products we use, the world over. It's not new to tell anyone this, or come up with some app that tells people this. Ftr, it's not just "Americans" that "freaked out", retweeted, posted, etc.. about this app and its findings, but that's less interesting of a story and won't get nearly as much engagement.
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Ha! Just wait until they read the FDA's "allowable contamination" standards for organic and "regular" produce.
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True! Fish scales are nature's eye glitter! 😆
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Does anyone actually believe they've never eaten insect parts and products? What is the big deal? I swallowed a fly yesterday - no freak outs, not tantrums...just went on with my day.
I don't know why you swallowed a fly... Perhaps you'll die.... 😆
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In Africa we eat locusts, grubs, worms, etc. depending on culture, so... get over yourselves. At least they're less sentient than the pigs germans consume in vast quantities. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56023720
Are they eating them because that's what's mostly available to them? Mostly we eat what our environment can provide for us. Would they still eat them if they could choose between bugs and beautiful pasta?
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I knew about this from school, Science, Foods and horticulture all talked about this. The red dye in most food is a from a bug.
Unless you buy products that use beet juice. But yea. At least it's natural.
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I hate artificial vanilla. It tastes so weird, nothing like actual vanilla. I hate fake food! Societies that eat more natural substances have much less incidents of cancer as well as other diseases.
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Get used to it, people. The way earth is headed we'll be lucky to eat insects at some point.
No fooling. These people whining now will be hoarding bugs at some point. 😆
Load More Replies... Only came on here to PMSL at the fragility. Wait until they find out how certain lipstick shades are made.
Figs (and fig newtons) contain wasps...a fig can't NOT have wasps in it...my fun fact :)
Totally baffling to me. We eat bugs every day without even being aware. Making you aware won't change anything. You get them in your food without knowing.. some are teeny little things you won't see in your salad. If people realized all the "gross" things the ingest daily they'd stop eating. But I can assure you, they're also in that nice glass of juice. And it doesn't matter if you're organic only, vegan or omnivore, you're ingesting bugs. Get over it. Processed foods are much worse for you.
everytime you think it cant get dumber O_O so they are concerned about the "bug parts" LOL but about the other c**p in their highly processed food? And the WEF put it there? It would be funny if it wasnt so scary. These people vote.
And people get sicker and sicker, fatter and fatter and can't seem to figure out why. Very perplexing to me when it is so obvious. Back when I was a kid highly processed foods weren't something we all consumed on a regular basis. Maybe cereal that was about it. Much healthier and slimmer back then.
Load More Replies... Where there are food processing facilities, there are bugs. There are laws here in the US regulating how many bug parts can legally be included in your canned goods. But you can't get rid of them completely. As long as the food is properly cooked.... Extra protein. Sounds gross, but at least bug parts (and carmine) are natural products. I'll take that as a coloring over the dyes we use.
I have zero issue eating insects. What I do have a problem with is the notion that coloring our food makes it more palatable. I don't need red dye in my strawberry yogurt, or yellow dye in my pasta to convince myself it tastes better than it actually does. I also don't need sugar replaced with other sweeteners artificial or natural, just put less f****** sugar in it. Sodium content has also gotten way out of control as well; sodium added to bread and canned or frozen vegetables has more than tripled in the last 30 years in the US market. Our food supply is being made less nutritious while salt, sugar, and colorings are being added so that we will still consume it. All this coincides with the formation of the giant conglomerates like ConAgra and Unilever who have taken over much of our farming and manufacturing of foods.
This made me so sick that I threw up my Nabisco crackers with rodent droppings!
If I can't SEE any bugs, I don't give a damn if they're in there. They're valid protein, just damned ugly and squishy. As long as I don't have that going on in my food, I don't care if they're there.
Hmm, honey anyone? And insects are in pretty much everything these days, flour, cereal, etc Unless they are using insects as a main ingredient, then yes, it should be labelled as such.
Average net user, munching on a hot dog: “Well, I’ll be good got damned! Peoples be Eaton’ bugs ‘n sh¡t! It’s one à them that conspiracies! Well, AH ain’t eating’ em! Gimme good ol’ animal carcasses any day!” (slurps down Fanta orange soda) FFS. There was a tomato hornworm in the salad you ate yesterday, and you raved about how great that salad was. Bugs = protein. No one’s been hurt YET eating bugs. It’s just that now you know it’s in there. Nothing’s changed. I don’t understand why people can’t unite over IMPORTANT matters (genocides, the trafficking of human beings, homelessness, etc). My does it always hafta be minutiae that doesn’t matter?
The Infowars video on that guy's tweet tells me everything I need to know
Also ... I've seen "Bug Burgers" and similar stuff, that isn't made of bugs, crickets, maggots, but contains some 10...20 % of protein content worth of ground-up insects, larvae and such. Somehow, breeding them for food is seen as alternative to plant-sourced foods that still pampers the need to have dead bodies on your plate, but uses less ressources (the wastefulness of meat production, in comparison to insects, is freely admitted by the same sort of people that claim "PlAnTs AlOnE cAn NoT fEeD tHe WoRlD, as if we'd run out of plants by eating plants rather than by feeding 10x plantes for 1x meat - wonder how come math is so selectively believed in...), and yet, it's replacing only a fraction of a fraction of ONE body (an entire pig or cow could be made into hundreds of burger patties) by a few hundred dead OTHER animals per piece ... and yet, there's some to complain about. I don't get people...
Oh my ... I've had such an app for ages, and before the age of apps finally reached my, I knew what "E 120" stands for. It's really not that hard, and other than vegetarians and vegans - who cares, even? Why, all of a sudden, object to non-hazardous insects (or, for that matter, spiders and other nonvertebrae) being thrown into your food? Why is THAT so much worse, or different at all to begin with?
Wait till they find out they coat fruit with shellac to. Its crushed bugs hahahah. the FDA has whole lists with how many bugs your normal food is allowed to contain to.
That's not actually correct. In the US and Canada the list of approved material for coating fruits and vegetables is very short and does not contain shellac. Almost all commercial operations use a polysaccharide-based starch (amylose) combined with pectin, alginate, or chitosan to coat things like apples so the ethylene gas naturally produced by the individual fruit doesn't cause all the fruit to spoil.
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Americans, sigh... Many foods have an acceptable quantity of insect parts. Yes, that's the AMERICAN FDA!!!!!!
I assure you, Americans, as a whole, are not freaking out, but people who happen to live in the U.S, along with people all over the world, might be (they're the same people that "freak out" over anything stupid). But thanks for proving my earlier point that people will absolutely take as many jabs at the US as they can, even when not grounded in reality, lol. More people outside of the US are "freaking out" about this app on social media right now, lol. Most of us are pretty well aware that we've all consumed insects and use products that contain them. We learn this pretty early on in our elementary school days, lol.
Load More Replies... I don't get it. People literally eat insects as a delicacy in some parts of the world. This isn't anything new? As someone else had said, I would rather eat insect parts than some of the other things that get added to foods.
It isn't actually a big deal. To understand why it's here on BP one need only look at the title "Americans are freaking out". Any story, any article, any picture, any bit of information that can pit BP users against, well, The U.S makes for good engagement. BP users, not all but certainly enough of them, like to take as many jabs at Americans as they can, lol. Also, the topic of the story itself is a nonstarter, because we're all very well aware that insect bits and pieces get into just about all the food we consume and products we use, the world over. It's not new to tell anyone this, or come up with some app that tells people this. Ftr, it's not just "Americans" that "freaked out", retweeted, posted, etc.. about this app and its findings, but that's less interesting of a story and won't get nearly as much engagement.
Load More Replies... Ha! Just wait until they read the FDA's "allowable contamination" standards for organic and "regular" produce.
Load More Replies... True! Fish scales are nature's eye glitter! 😆
Load More Replies... Does anyone actually believe they've never eaten insect parts and products? What is the big deal? I swallowed a fly yesterday - no freak outs, not tantrums...just went on with my day.
I don't know why you swallowed a fly... Perhaps you'll die.... 😆
Load More Replies... In Africa we eat locusts, grubs, worms, etc. depending on culture, so... get over yourselves. At least they're less sentient than the pigs germans consume in vast quantities. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56023720
Are they eating them because that's what's mostly available to them? Mostly we eat what our environment can provide for us. Would they still eat them if they could choose between bugs and beautiful pasta?
Load More Replies... I knew about this from school, Science, Foods and horticulture all talked about this. The red dye in most food is a from a bug.
Unless you buy products that use beet juice. But yea. At least it's natural.
Load More Replies... I hate artificial vanilla. It tastes so weird, nothing like actual vanilla. I hate fake food! Societies that eat more natural substances have much less incidents of cancer as well as other diseases.
Load More Replies... Get used to it, people. The way earth is headed we'll be lucky to eat insects at some point.
No fooling. These people whining now will be hoarding bugs at some point. 😆
Load More Replies... Only came on here to PMSL at the fragility. Wait until they find out how certain lipstick shades are made.
Figs (and fig newtons) contain wasps...a fig can't NOT have wasps in it...my fun fact :)
Totally baffling to me. We eat bugs every day without even being aware. Making you aware won't change anything. You get them in your food without knowing.. some are teeny little things you won't see in your salad. If people realized all the "gross" things the ingest daily they'd stop eating. But I can assure you, they're also in that nice glass of juice. And it doesn't matter if you're organic only, vegan or omnivore, you're ingesting bugs. Get over it. Processed foods are much worse for you.
everytime you think it cant get dumber O_O so they are concerned about the "bug parts" LOL but about the other c**p in their highly processed food? And the WEF put it there? It would be funny if it wasnt so scary. These people vote.
And people get sicker and sicker, fatter and fatter and can't seem to figure out why. Very perplexing to me when it is so obvious. Back when I was a kid highly processed foods weren't something we all consumed on a regular basis. Maybe cereal that was about it. Much healthier and slimmer back then.
Load More Replies... Where there are food processing facilities, there are bugs. There are laws here in the US regulating how many bug parts can legally be included in your canned goods. But you can't get rid of them completely. As long as the food is properly cooked.... Extra protein. Sounds gross, but at least bug parts (and carmine) are natural products. I'll take that as a coloring over the dyes we use.
I have zero issue eating insects. What I do have a problem with is the notion that coloring our food makes it more palatable. I don't need red dye in my strawberry yogurt, or yellow dye in my pasta to convince myself it tastes better than it actually does. I also don't need sugar replaced with other sweeteners artificial or natural, just put less f****** sugar in it. Sodium content has also gotten way out of control as well; sodium added to bread and canned or frozen vegetables has more than tripled in the last 30 years in the US market. Our food supply is being made less nutritious while salt, sugar, and colorings are being added so that we will still consume it. All this coincides with the formation of the giant conglomerates like ConAgra and Unilever who have taken over much of our farming and manufacturing of foods.
This made me so sick that I threw up my Nabisco crackers with rodent droppings!
If I can't SEE any bugs, I don't give a damn if they're in there. They're valid protein, just damned ugly and squishy. As long as I don't have that going on in my food, I don't care if they're there.
Hmm, honey anyone? And insects are in pretty much everything these days, flour, cereal, etc Unless they are using insects as a main ingredient, then yes, it should be labelled as such.
Average net user, munching on a hot dog: “Well, I’ll be good got damned! Peoples be Eaton’ bugs ‘n sh¡t! It’s one à them that conspiracies! Well, AH ain’t eating’ em! Gimme good ol’ animal carcasses any day!” (slurps down Fanta orange soda) FFS. There was a tomato hornworm in the salad you ate yesterday, and you raved about how great that salad was. Bugs = protein. No one’s been hurt YET eating bugs. It’s just that now you know it’s in there. Nothing’s changed. I don’t understand why people can’t unite over IMPORTANT matters (genocides, the trafficking of human beings, homelessness, etc). My does it always hafta be minutiae that doesn’t matter?
The Infowars video on that guy's tweet tells me everything I need to know
Also ... I've seen "Bug Burgers" and similar stuff, that isn't made of bugs, crickets, maggots, but contains some 10...20 % of protein content worth of ground-up insects, larvae and such. Somehow, breeding them for food is seen as alternative to plant-sourced foods that still pampers the need to have dead bodies on your plate, but uses less ressources (the wastefulness of meat production, in comparison to insects, is freely admitted by the same sort of people that claim "PlAnTs AlOnE cAn NoT fEeD tHe WoRlD, as if we'd run out of plants by eating plants rather than by feeding 10x plantes for 1x meat - wonder how come math is so selectively believed in...), and yet, it's replacing only a fraction of a fraction of ONE body (an entire pig or cow could be made into hundreds of burger patties) by a few hundred dead OTHER animals per piece ... and yet, there's some to complain about. I don't get people...
Oh my ... I've had such an app for ages, and before the age of apps finally reached my, I knew what "E 120" stands for. It's really not that hard, and other than vegetarians and vegans - who cares, even? Why, all of a sudden, object to non-hazardous insects (or, for that matter, spiders and other nonvertebrae) being thrown into your food? Why is THAT so much worse, or different at all to begin with?
Wait till they find out they coat fruit with shellac to. Its crushed bugs hahahah. the FDA has whole lists with how many bugs your normal food is allowed to contain to.
That's not actually correct. In the US and Canada the list of approved material for coating fruits and vegetables is very short and does not contain shellac. Almost all commercial operations use a polysaccharide-based starch (amylose) combined with pectin, alginate, or chitosan to coat things like apples so the ethylene gas naturally produced by the individual fruit doesn't cause all the fruit to spoil.
Load More Replies... Americans, sigh... Many foods have an acceptable quantity of insect parts. Yes, that's the AMERICAN FDA!!!!!!
I assure you, Americans, as a whole, are not freaking out, but people who happen to live in the U.S, along with people all over the world, might be (they're the same people that "freak out" over anything stupid). But thanks for proving my earlier point that people will absolutely take as many jabs at the US as they can, even when not grounded in reality, lol. More people outside of the US are "freaking out" about this app on social media right now, lol. Most of us are pretty well aware that we've all consumed insects and use products that contain them. We learn this pretty early on in our elementary school days, lol.
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