Democrats don’t want people to know whether they’re consuming products with insect-based ingredients.
Minnesota Senate Democrats rejected an amendment that would have required foods containing insects to be labeled.
Shocker.
The moves comes after the Senate this week passed an omnibus agriculture policy bill called S.F. 4225.
You will eat the bugs. 🐜 🐛 🕷️
Minnesota Democrats just voted no to require your food is labeled if it has bugs or bug protein. This is so GROSS! @grant_hauschild some of us would like to avoid eating insects even if you think it’s just fine. Hiding bugs in our food is gross. pic.twitter.com/9fLFAYsaZT— MN Republicans HD3B (@MNHD3BGOP) April 4, 2024
But before the bill was passed, Sen. Torrey Westrom (R-Alexandria) introduced an amendment that would require food to be properly labeled if it contains either insect products or artificial “cell-cultured” food like lab-grown meat.
Westrom said, “this just sets forth that if there’s bugs in your food for protein, cricket flour, whatever it is, it needs to be labeled. The consumers need to know. If your meat is cell-cultured and grown in a petri dish, you also need to know. Consumers should have that knowledge as they shop in the stores.”
Republican colleague Sen. Jim Abeler echoed Westrom’s remarks, calling the amendment a “no-brainer.”
“Let’s tell people what’s in their food that some people don’t even consider to be food,” he said. “Just because there’s no money in the bill doesn’t mean we can’t establish a policy.”
But the bill’s author Sen. Aric Putnam, (D-St. Cloud), shot down the proposal, claiming that although “consumers should know what they are consuming”, the issue of labeling insect parts in products was a “future problem” that didn’t need to be addressed yet.
“Everybody wants to have consumer awareness of the food that they eat, but some of us want to do it in a thoughtful way,” he said.
“One thing that came from that discussion is that currently there is only one space in the entire country that is selling cell-cultivated meat and that was a restaurant in San Francisco that has already stopped doing it,” Putnam added.
Westrom’s amendment was ultimately defeated in a 33-34 vote.
But why are Democrats so against this common-sense measure to simply empower consumers by informing them about what’s in their food, especially as more “progressive” companies attempt to introduce insect-based products into the food supply?
It’s because they want to force you to “eat the bugs” in the name of fighting climate change, in accordance with World Economic Forum doctrine.