Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is pumping millions of dollars into efforts to flood the human food supply with hyper-processed products made from “genetically modified insects.”
Gates and his foundation have been investing in the development of the products while pressuring U.S. regulators to open up the floodgates for insect-based “foods” to be sold in American stores.
The plan is not new, however, as Gates has been pushing for bugs to be fed to Americans for over a decade.
In 2012, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation a project called “All Things Bugs.”
According to Gates, the project sought to “develop a novel food product made from insects to treat malnutrition in children from famine-stricken areas of the world.”
Since then, the company has expanded into developing genetically modified insects.
The development of these products has been advanced with help from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).
Regulators in non-U.S. countries, including Singapore, have recently issued approvals for specific insect-based foods.
However, the regulatory landscape is more of a gray area in the U.S.
There is no legal approval process or clear-cut prohibition of insects for human consumption.
As a result, insect-containing foods have already infiltrated the American food supply.
Bugs have reached U.S. consumers, despite one of the few existing U.S. laws that address insects in the food supply referring to them as “filth” and a form of “adulteration.”
Insects reach U.S. consumers in a variety of forms, such as crickets and grasshoppers in protein bars or protein shakes.
Aside from being sold in grocery stores and restaurants, insects are also promoted as pet food and animal feed ingredients.
With few U.S. regulatory barriers to contend with, investors like Bill Gates and Big Food giants such as Tyson Foods have also begun investing in “alternative protein” startups.
Despite corporate media “fact-checkers” scrambling to claim Gates doesn’t support the consumption of insects, the billionaire is heavily funding such efforts.
Since its launch in 2012, Gates-funded All Things Bugs has expanded into the development of genetically modified insects.
The company also received taxpayer funding from the DOD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
“We are using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and other methodologies to develop base technologies for creating insects as a new bioresource,” the company states.
DARPA is the DOD’s research and development agency.
All Things Bugs said that while insects are “a very sustainable source of protein,” it “is innovating to make them a feasible commodity for the food industry.”
In a statement about the project, Claire Robinson, the managing editor of GMWatch, said:
“With all GMOs [genetically modified organisms], including insects, it’s vital that they are subjected to a pre-marketing risk assessment for health and the environment.
“This includes testing them for the presence of pathogens, possible allergens, and substances that may be toxic to humans. Then they must be clearly labeled for the consumer.”
Gates’s investments in insect-based products appear to be part of a broader strategy to invest in “alternatives” to animal-based foods for consumers.
In a February blog post, Gates said he invested in Savor, a startup producing butter made from air (carbon dioxide) and water (hydrogen), as THAIMBC News reported.
The push to create fake dairy-free butter is part of Gates’s wide agenda to eliminate farming.
In 2020, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, founded by Gates, invested in Nature’s Fynd, a startup producing foods containing fungi-based protein.
In 2022, the Gates Foundation awarded a $4.76 million grant to Nature’s Fynd.
More recently, it emerged that Gates has been investing in a product dubbed “maggot milk.”
“Maggot milk” is pitched as an “alternative” to dairy that is made from liquidized fly larvae.
The U.S. government’s National Science Foundation (NSF) also is involved in the insects-as-food space, through its funding of the Center for Environmental Sustainability through Insect Farming (CEIF).
Established in 2021, CEIF seeks “to develop novel methods for using insects as feed for livestock, poultry, and aquaculture.”
