Notes from the edge of civilization: Mar. 17, 2024 (St. Patrick's Day edition)

Even Muppets are feeling shrinkflation. GenZ's weird relationship with food. Plus, you may not have to eat bugs... not directly, anyway.

Setting aside the cliché commercial representations of St. Patrick’s Day — it’s not shamrock shakes from McDonald’s, green beer, diddley-diddley music, or any other variation thereof — we extend warm wishes to all on this day set aside to honor Ireland’s patron saint known for his humility, courage, and forgiveness. We’ll raise a glass of Guinness to that.

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President Biden is making sure voters don’t get snookered out of their Snickers. The Biden administration took bold action [sarcasm] in recent weeks, placing the fight against “corporate rip-offs” ahead of plans to tackle our crushing debt, address the immigration crisis at the southern border, and put a stop to endless wars.

Do Muppets get a vote yet? ‘Cause if they do, it looks like Cookie Monster might have already made his choice.

We’re not sure if the girls on TikTok complaining about their ever-growing bagel holes are old enough to vote yet but, who knows, maybe they’ll also lean in to the shrinkflation vote. (Take 11 seconds to watch the video below.)

@spamspamham @spamspamham ♬ original sound - daddyjacky

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Food is a theme the TikTok generation loves to post about on social media. This week on Collapse Life, we explored some of the ways this plays out — from talking about $25 smoothies to posting pictures of ‘girl dinners’ made up of pickles and potato chips. This led to a discussion in the comments section about stereotyping, clout-chasing, and how every generation has its own way of fetishizing behaviors. What do you think?

Gen Z's culinary escapades are a symptom of societal decay

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While young adults are suddenly feeling the pinch of inflation, their younger siblings are being indoctrinated to accept a world where real food is no longer available. A site called edibleinsects.com has a colorful ‘educational’ poster listing 10 reasons why you should eat bugs.

A Google search for ‘why kids should eat bugs’ returns over 29.5 million results, including research papers, study tools, magazine articles, and even advocacy from patient groups like the American Heart Association.

An interesting twist on the edible insects saga is that the narrative is now shifting away from bugs being a substitute for animal protein to bugs being a conduit for more sustainable animal protein. So you may not have to eat the bugs, but the cow or chicken you plan to eat will.

Here’s what Bloomberg opinion columnist David Fickling had to say recently:

The ecologically minded push to include more grubs in human diets is going hand-in-hand with a more hard-headed drive to allow them back into feed troughs, too. The EU allowed insects to be fed to fish in 2017 and to chickens and pigs in 2021.

Horrible food is such a sci-fi staple because people are fussy eaters — one reason that insect farming so far is mostly serving the needs of grub-eating pets, as Bloomberg News reported last month. Farm animals don’t get a choice about their lunch, however.

If feed pellets made from fly larvae, crickets and mealworms succeed in lowering the cost of producing poultry and livestock meat, it’s going to make such products more affordable and increase global consumption. That’s unlikely to be a win in climate terms, no matter how efficiently we bulk up our farm animals. If you’re looking for a diet with a lower carbon footprint, you’d be better off giving up meat altogether.

This is exactly why we here at Collapse Life keep hammering home the message that it’s critical to get to know your local farmer or rancher. That’s the only way you can know for sure what you are putting in to your body.

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In case you missed it, here’s what else was happening on Collapse Life this week:

The WHO and its old bag of tricks

As the world marked four years since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, we looked back at a pattern that should have been heeded years ago.

A Wall Street Whiz Kid's Warning

Peter Grandich believes an incredible amount of borrowing, a retirement and aging crisis, and a deep political divide are leading to the death of the American Dream.

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