Someone asked me recently, rather skeptically, why I thought that vegans and those who eat a plant-based diet would be open-minded about eating insects.
Because their research and the people they’d surveyed showed that normal people who aren’t vegan, who eat whatever they want, those people still consistently rejected the idea of eating bugs. They were disgusted and grossed out by it.
So what makes me think people who don’t eat animals or use animal products are going to eat bugs?!
Well, honestly I think the answer is pretty simple. The people most likely to accept eating insets with an open mind, are the people already used to eating weird but healthy foods like kale and quinoa, or making healthy lifestyle choices that might be outside the norm, like doing juice cleanses and yoga.
Those people – and I’m one of them and have been most of my life – are constantly looking for new, healthy, sustainable food options. No matter how strange or non-traditional.
Eating insects like crickets is a healthy, sustainable addition to any plant-based diet
In fact, as most early adopters will tell you, “discovering” a new health product that isn’t yet common gives it extra points on a desirability scale! That’s what being an early adopter is all about.
Insects, of course, fit that description.They’re healthy, sustainable, and in the west, still far outside the norm.
Contrast those people though, with a mainstream normal person in the west – someone sitting on their couch 6 hours a day watching TV, eating McDonald’s and drinking diet Coke. No, those people are not likely to be open-minded about eating insects! Of course not.
Most people in the west who would be considered normal, or mainstream, don’t take care of their health unless it’s in pill form, and they don’t really care about sustainability, unless it’s to virtue signal through methods that are extremely easy and convenient (which is why it’s important for businesses to make sustainability easier and more convenient…and more instagram-worthy).
So yes – I definitely think that vegans and plant-based eaters who do so primarily for health and sustainability reasons, are more likely to be open-minded early adopters of eating insects, than your typical “normal” person in the west.
