Constitution Party
Newsletter
January 29,
2024
  "LET THEM EAT
BUGS"
Employees sort out crickets for
size at Smile Cricket Farm at Ratchaburi province, southwest of
Bangkok, Thailand, on Oct. 3, 2019
Dear Friends of the Constitution Party,
The link/article below was brought to my attention by Missouri
State Representative Holly Jones, founding member of the Freedom
Caucus. Rep. Jones was a guest speaker at the Spring 2023 National
Committee Meeting featuring keynote speaker, Dr. Robert Malone. While
this farm is not in her District, she did admit that if it were, she'd
be in their face every day!
Are bugs listed on our food labels?
Is there a cricket farm near you?
Cindy Redburn, Donna Ivanovich &
Rep. Holly Jones
This is not just talk
It's reality
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/business/fenton-startup-welcomes-its-first-crop-of-crickets/article_32db8226-30ce-11ee-994f-33e418a89b6e.html
WILDWOOD — A Fenton-based startup that is
pioneering the use of crickets as a protein source is trying to
cultivate its own crop of chirpers in Wildwood.
The Mighty Cricket, founded in 2018, was awarded a
grant this month from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to collect
food waste from local restaurants and grocery stores on which to raise
the six-legged crew and fine-tune their flavor.
The inclusion of insects as a dietary choice — aside from the 2
pounds of bug bits people consume unwittingly each year — is still
rare in the United States. But as attention turns to sustainability
and health, palates are broadening.
Vegan burgers are on the menu at fast-food chains. Two companies
producing lab-grown meats earned Food and Drug Administration approval
in June. The U.S. market for protein alternatives surged 60% between
2019 and 2021, according to Nielsen data, though that stemmed mostly
from products made of beans and legumes.
Bugs-as-nourishment can be a difficult concept for Americans
to swallow, even as options are multiplying.
“It’s not just grasshoppers on pizzas,” said Jeff Tomberlin,
an entomologist who teaches at Texas A&M University. “You don’t
ever see the insect.”
In many parts of the world, mealworms, beetles and ants are not a
novelty but a staple. About 2 billion people — mostly in Africa, Asia
and Latin America — regularly put insects on their plates. The market
is expected to reach $9.6 billion worldwide by 2030.
“The U.S. is behind the curve,” Tomberlin said. “The Western world
is catching up to the rest of the world.”
Two years ago, he co-founded the Center for Environmental Sustainability Through Insect
Farming with two other universities to study how to
advance insect production for animal and
human consumption.
Bugs aren’t burdened with the same environmental baggage as the big
three meats: beef, pork and chicken. Livestock emits methane, a gas
that contributes to atmospheric warming, and takes up more than
two-thirds of the globe’s agricultural land.
“I think if people knew where their food came from, it would be
very enlightening,” Tomberlin said.
Crickets, while saddled with an unsavory reputation, are a model of
efficiency. Their space requirements are almost as small as they are.
They don’t need much food or water. And they grow quickly: The
population turns over in six to eight weeks.
When the nocturnal jumpers reach their final day, they get popped
into the freezer where they slide into a state of hibernation called
torpor, just like they would during the cool nights of late autumn.
After 24 hours, they die.
“It’s really lovely,” said Sarah Schlafly, the owner of Mighty
Cricket.
The crickets are then blanched, roasted and milled. The powder is
blended in Mighty Cricket’s Fenton warehouse into bags of oatmeal —
apple cinnamon, dark chocolate and coconut cream — or protein
supplements in plain, vanilla and chocolate.
For five years, outside suppliers have provided the Mighty
Cricket’s eponymous ingredient. But they weren’t always reliable. Some
went out of business. And the taste could be inconsistent — sometimes
mild, sometimes earthy.
The only way to get exactly what she wanted, Schlafly thought, was
to farm her own team of tiny omnivores and tinker with their diets
until she landed on the right menu. She applied for a $131,500 Small
Business Innovation Research Grant in October and found out in May
that she got it. It allowed her to bring on another full-time
employee, purchase equipment and rent space for research and
development at the Helix Center, a biotech incubator in Creve
Coeur.
Schlafly knows precisely what she is chasing: a batch she sampled a
couple years ago that has never been equaled.
“They were amazing tasting,” she said. “Exactly like
pistachios.”
With some reverse engineering, she’s trying to replicate the inputs
that will elicit the same nutty quality.
A cricket farm is not a complicated operation. Schlafly is starting
with 10 plastic bins inside her garage. Her initial herd — or, to be
precise, orchestra — will number about a thousand. The inch-long
scavengers will snack out of little dishes and drink from the same
automatic chicken waterers used in coops.
The variable is what they will eat. Schlafly has contacted local
grocers and restaurants, such as Whole Foods and Companion bakery, to
rescue their discards: carrot tops and wilted greens, stale bread and
potato peels. Then she will experiment until the crickets embody her
sought-after flavor.
Once she can standardize the feed, she hopes to scale up, first for
the Mighty Cricket line and then selling to owners of exotic animals,
pet food companies and zoos. That will likely be years down the road,
Schlafly said, and will require another infusion of money.
Despite the slow process, if small businesses like Schlafly’s
“remain engaged and persistent,” said Texas A&M’s Tomberlin,
insects will enjoy a status boost.
No longer just basement pests, he said, but vitamin B12 providers.
Mineral powerhouses. Environmental superheroes.
Help the Constitution Party with your financial and/or physical
support
https://constitutionparty.nationbuilder.com/
Questions or Comments, click here to contact Donna Ivanovich,
Assistant to the National Chairman
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