Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Meaghan Furlano, PhD Student, Sociology, Western University

“Tradwives” say they are opting out of a culture that undervalues women at home. But a closer look at who they are and what they promote tells a different story: The mainstreaming of far-right politics through the language of “traditional values” like femininity and domesticity.

Short for traditional wives, tradwives are popular influencers on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Tradwife content is characterized by its appeal to “nature,” its reinforcement of “traditional” gender roles and its use of 1950s nostalgia alongside rural, off-grid homesteading aesthetics.

If we want to interpret the growing popularity of tradwives sociologically, we need to do three things.

First, we need to determine the statuses an individual holds and the roles associated with these statuses at a given time. We also have to explore how individuals make sense of them. Second, we need to examine how an individual’s statuses and roles are constituted by, and shaped through, social institutions. Third, we need to consider what function these institutions play in upholding social structures.

Doing so can help us recognize that cultural trends, like social media tradwives, are not random phenomena but products of broader socio-political currents.

The tradwife influencer identity

Research has found that while tradwives tend to be politically right-wing, important variations exist among them. Conservative tradwives — women who discuss “femininity” and “traditional” gender roles — are closest to the political centre.

Others, including alt-lite and alt-right tradwives, are more ideologically extreme. They mobilize anti-feminist, anti-immigrant and white supremacist rhetoric. At times, they have clear ties to far-right political organizations.

If we want to understand what their rise to popularity since 2024 indicates about the contemporary political landscape, and if we want to understand these women’s role within right-wing reactions to feminism, then we must start by undertaking the three requirements listed above.

‘Traditional’ femininity remains unchallenged

To start, we must ask: what roles do tradwives attach to their status? What is the purpose of being a tradwife?

Emerging research indicates that tradwives define themselves as wives and mothers. Their roles include homemaker, defender of “traditional” values, and, at times, bearer of the “white race.” Tradwives depict their countries as being under siege by cultural pollution, miscegenation and non-white migration. Accordingly, tradwives frame themselves as moral entities “restoring” the West.

Other researchers like Eviane Leidig, a researcher in online extremism and radicalization, have explored the role of women in far-right politics. These analyses suggest that women play a key role in normalizing and mainstreaming hateful ideologies by drawing on influencer culture. They take you into their homes, show you their children and talk to you about their everyday lives.

Yet, slipped into videos of tradwives baking sourdough bread are comments about “our migration problem” and how they felt compelled to home-school their children because of the “woke ideology” running amok in public schools.

Once your interest is piqued, you are directed to less regulated platforms that traffic in more overt hate.

What tradwives are actually defending

Next we must ask: how have institutions like work, family and media shaped the roles attached to being a wife and mother?

Research demonstrates that women face greater cultural expectations to undertake housework and relationship labour than men. Men are more likely than women to report that society values the contributions of their paid work more than it does their household labour. Women tend to report the opposite.

Sociologists have explained how the institution of work was designed around the male-breadwinner and female-homemaker model. Men were paid a wage that could provide for their family, while women performed unwaged labour in the home.

But families have changed. Dual-earner families are on the rise because women have been forced by economic necessity into joining the paid workforce (not simply because of feminism, as tradwives argue). Despite these changes, the institution of work has remained resistant to accommodating women.

Tradwives frame their lifestyles as countercultural. They claim only professional, working women are valued culturally, and that institutions have abandoned them as traditional women.

But the construction of femininity they promote — one bound in “traditional” ideas about labour — remains institutionally salient. While it may have been critiqued in the 2010s “popular feminist” climate, no large or enduring structural shifts followed. The gender wage gap in Canada remains sizable, especially when factors such as race and immigrant status are taken into account.

Institutions that uphold social structure

Finally, we must ask even broader questions. For example, how do tradwives contribute to the reproduction of unequal structures of race, class and gender?

Tradwives frame a highly specific form of femininity — domestic, heterosexual, submissive and often implicitly white — as natural, desirable and morally superior. By presenting it as “natural” rather than socially constructed and affirmed by social institutions, tradwives obscure the structural foundations of “traditional” femininity and help make existing inequalities seem inevitable — even healthy.

What forces made this possible? In the case of tradwives, the answer is not a mystery: Institutions that were never fully reformed, gender norms that were critiqued but never dismantled and a political moment that has made the far right newly palatable.

Tradwives did not create these conditions, but they are also not just a niche internet esthetic. They are right-wing women actively trying to preserve those structural inequalities and “Make Patriarchy Great Again.”

Meaghan Furlano receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

– ref. Tradwives want to ‘make patriarchy great again.’ A sociologist explains what they’re all about – https://theconversation.com/tradwives-want-to-make-patriarchy-great-again-a-sociologist-explains-what-theyre-all-about-282931

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Cristiano Barbosa de Moura, Assistant Professor of Science Education, Simon Fraser University

For decades, science educators have been encouraged to “stick to the science” and leave politics at the classroom door. But as disinformation spreads online and public trust in science seems to erode in some contexts, this advice is no longer realistic.

In Canada and elsewhere, science teachers face a challenge. Science is being questioned in varied ways, from social media videos to (sometimes convincing) messages in a larger cultural landscape of conspiratorial rhetoric emphasizing “what they don’t want you to know.”

From climate change denial to debates about vaccines, the classroom has become a front line in broader cultural battles amplified by individuals or groups via social media.

In this context, history may be one of the most powerful tools science teachers have to navigate sensitive issues, as research (including my own) has demonstrated.

My collaborative research project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, is examining the question: “How do teachers teach science through history when the histories spark potentially heated sociopolitical debates?”

Why history matters in science education

For decades, research has shown students better understand how science works “behind the curtains” — what has been called “nature of science” — when they learn how discoveries were made, challenged and revised over time. Teaching students about the history of science has been a way to showcase the mechanisms of how knowledge is produced.

Some examples are understanding the role of evidence in proposing a theory or model or scientists’ arguments, disagreements and uncertainty when interpreting phenomena.

However, much of this past work on teaching the history of science in science education has fallen short. More can be done to address the social and political struggles that shaped science itself.

Science is intertwined with power

Today, educators acknowledge that history in science education is not just about facts and timelines. Historical examination reveals how science has been intertwined with race, gender, colonialism and power.

Examples abound and are increasingly known:

• Eugenics in the 19th century and beyond;

• Several cases of the “Matilda Effect” (when women’s contributions to science are erased);

• Analyses highlighting the asymmetries between groups when producing knowledge, or simply the pillage of ideas and natural resources from Indigenous communities around the world, among other examples.

These realities point to the need for a new engagement with the history of science in science education.

Distrust is being amplified

It’s understandable that some individuals or communities that have first-hand or historical experience of science being used to exploit or oppress them may now experience skepticism or distrust in scientific research and the scientific enterprise.

This said, we now face situations where some ill-intentioned people or anti-democratic agitators sow distrust in society, sometimes related to science — or blur debates in a way that the public cannot discern what good science looks like anymore.

The worst teachers can do is avoid this conversation in the classroom. Misinformation thrives in such environments.

The challenge is to go further than exploring how knowledge is produced, to explore the sociopolitical dynamics of science, as argued by many researchers recently.

This means, in part, navigating changing historical evidence and evolving interpretations of it — as well as uncovering the stories that have long gone untold.

It means identifying patterns of oppression and inequities that are intertwined with scientific research and its legacies.

Teachers play a central role

Of course, bringing charged histories into the classroom is challenging. Addressing eugenics or the pillage of natural resources in the Global South may trigger students from related backgrounds, or students who have political empathy or solidarity with them.

Exploring Indigenous knowledge systems alongside western science can challenge the myth that science is purely a western creation. At the same time, this can risk pushback from some parents or administrators who think such content means teachers aren’t teaching science. Even worse, teachers can be accused of political indoctrination.

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Read more:
Indigenous song keepers reveal traditional ecological knowledge in music

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Yet teachers also find creative ways forward. Some use historical case studies of environmental degradation to frame discussions about how knowledge production and socio-political and moral elements are intertwined.

Others examine how corporations help shape scientific content or a scope of research, or draw on stories of women and racialized scientists to open conversations about equity and representation in STEM.

Historically situating today’s debates

A promising approach would be to understand how teachers who “go against the grain” do so in their classrooms and beyond school walls.

Sensitive topics sometimes spark discomfort, but using historical examples can also provide distance, allowing students to explore critically without feeling personally attacked. This offers teachers a rich tapestry to draw on when building historical accounts of science.

By situating today’s debates in a longer trajectory, teachers play a critical role helping students see that controversies around science are longstanding. Societies have always struggled to reconcile evidence with values.

Engaging with history helps science students understand that knowledge, power and identity are interconnected in the classroom and beyond. Students can then be prepared to be aware citizens who can evaluate misinformation, grasp the social aspects of scientific issues and engage in democratic discussions.

In a polarized society, this is critically needed. Whether dealing with pandemics, climate change or artificial intelligence, students will face conflicting claims through the media and at home.

Avoiding complex discussions in schools leaves young people unprepared to understand them.

Renewed vision of science teaching

The stakes are high. If science educators continue to portray that science is neutral and apolitical, we risk reinforcing the very divisions we hope to overcome.

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Read more:
Social studies as ‘neutral?’ That’s a myth, and pressures teachers to avoid contentious issues

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But if we embrace history as a lens for teaching complex accounts of science, we open possibilities for more critical and socially relevant classrooms.

This means rethinking curricula, teacher education and support systems so that educators can confidently bring historical and sociopolitical perspectives into their teaching practice. It means valuing teachers as intellectuals who can adapt knowledge to their contexts, rather than reducing them to deliverers of neutral content.

Role for research partnerships

Academic researchers have a pivotal role. They can develop partnerships with teachers, hear their voices and work together to develop teaching practices that are grounded in teachers’ own contexts.

Such efforts may also help build trust and social cohesion, starting by uniting universities and other educational institutions, overcoming the divisiveness that has taken hold in so many places across the world.

Simply reclaiming the importance of science (or “defending” it) will fall short of the stature and complexity of the challenge ahead of us.

Cristiano Barbosa de Moura received funding from SSHRC to study this theme.

– ref. How teaching the history of science can help equip students to face polarized times – https://theconversation.com/how-teaching-the-history-of-science-can-help-equip-students-to-face-polarized-times-280332

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Pauline McDonagh Hull, PhD Candidate, Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary

“Hopeful,” “excited” and “helpful” for the future of women’s health — these are just some of the words expressed by the team that worked together for more than a decade to change the name polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS).

PMOS is a chronic condition associated with diabetes, heart disease, depression, infertility, pregnancy complications and a general decreased quality of life. It affects an estimated one in eight women worldwide, and about one in 10 Canadian women, yet the World Health Organization estimates that 70 per cent of those affected have never received a diagnosis.

Why the name has changed

The term PCOS was inaccurate, because there is no increase in abnormal ovarian cysts. Rather, the hallmark of this condition is follicles, or little fluid sacs, around partly developed eggs, which are caused when development is disrupted by a hormonal or chemical messenger disturbance.

For years, this inaccuracy contributed to the disorder being misunderstood, underrecognized, underdiagnosed and undertreated. Because PMOS is not primarily a disease of the ovaries, calling it PCOS meant all the broader features of the condition were neglected.

In a news release from Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia,
, chair of the charity Verity in the United Kingdom and a member of the name change team with almost 20 years’ lived PMOS experience, explains:

“It has not only impacted how the condition has been understood, it has also affected how seriously it is taken. The inaccurate name has negatively influenced awareness, education, and even the level of research, attention and funding it has received.”

The new name, PMOS, published in The Lancet on May 12, reflects the broader polyendocrine disturbances occurring in women’s insulin, androgens and neuroendocrine and ovarian hormones, and the metabolic impacts these have on their lives.

Prof. Helena Teede, the endocrinologist at Monash University who led the international name change team, said in an announcement: “PMOS is building on what we knew before but really is reflective of the much more diverse and broad features of this condition.”

The name change team also wants the new name to help remove the significant stigma and judgment that is often associated with PMOS, including stigma and judgment around weight gain. Anxiety, depression and eating disorders are all common in women with PMOS, and the risk of metabolic complications like developing Type 2 diabetes is high and occurs at a younger age compared to women without PMOS. Many women are also affected by bothersome symptoms like acne and excess hair growth.

With the new name now reflecting the condition as a complex and cyclical metabolic disorder, Robyn Vettese, who is chair of the PMOS Patient Advisory Council in Alberta and co-author on this story, hopes this will mean all patients, whose symptoms can vary significantly, are met with the understanding they deserve and are supported for long-term health.

How the name was changed

The transition from PCOS to PMOS has been described as the largest, unprecedented global engagement process ever undertaken for a health condition name change and highlights the value of creating space for patients’ voices and lived experiences in improving health care.

Following years of advocacy and campaigning, in 2025, the name change team reported on a survey that found 85.6 per cent of patients and 76.1 per cent of health professionals agreed with the change.

This secured the mandate needed, and after 22,000 health professionals and people living with PMOS participated in surveys and workshops — together with the involvement of 56 leading academic, clinical and patient organizations, including the Canadian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada — the acronym PCOS was retired.

Future PMOS advocacy and research

Looking ahead, Vettese sees the name change as a call to action for care providers to participate in education and learning about PMOS and to promote a wider, whole-body health approach.

Dr. Jamie Benham, who runs the Endocrine, Metabolic and Reproductive Advancements (EMBRACE) Women’s Health Research Lab at the University of Calgary and is an author of this story, agrees. She is one of the 62 Global Name Change Consortium authors cited in The Lancet paper, and her immediate priorities are to raise awareness about what the PMOS change means and to continue collaborating with patients to ensure the lab’s research questions are directly relevant to the affected population.

Increasing diagnosis and providing funding for PMOS learning and research in Canada are critical to improve treatment and management of this lifelong, challenging condition, as was underscored in the 2024 McKinsey Health Institute report, Closing the Women’s Health Gap.

Throughout the three-year transition period planned for the name change, we anticipate an expansion in PMOS care by Canadian physicians in the diverse fields of endocrinology, gynecology, dermatology, pediatrics and primary practice.

Up until now, the treatment and management of PMOS has been insufficient. Its new name, and the journey to achieve it, signifies real, genuine change. Researchers, clinicians and patients have come together to say that people with PMOS deserve more appropriate and comprehensive care and support, throughout their whole lives. They are very hopeful this will happen.

Jamie Benham receives grant funding to support research from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the M.S.I. Foundation, the Provincial Diabetes Steering Committee, and Diabetes Canada. She is affiliated with the Androgen Excess PCOS Society, the Canadian Menopause Society, and the Diabetes Canada Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Group.

Pauline McDonagh Hull and Robyn Vettese do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. From PCOS to PMOS: What the name change to polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome means for women’s health – https://theconversation.com/from-pcos-to-pmos-what-the-name-change-to-polyendocrine-metabolic-ovarian-syndrome-means-for-womens-health-282843

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Biz Nijdam, Assistant Professor, Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies, University of British Columbia

Researchers at the University of Plymouth recently confirmed what board game fans and role-playing game (RPG) enthusiasts have known for decades: that tabletop games “enhance well-being, foster inclusion, and support learning, with strong evidence that games improve engagement.”

The researchers were particularly interested in how board games benefit people who display autistic traits, but tabletop gaming has social benefits that support personal well-being for everyone.

For those of us who spend our free time with 20-sided dice, or boast an impressive collection of meeple-themed jewelry, it’s undeniable that we’re living in a “golden age” of board games. But with digital technologies on the rise, the success of tabletop games might come as a surprise to some.

In 2025, the global board games and playing card market was valued at almost US$20 billion and is projected to reach US$32 billion by 2030. This increased interest is typically attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the global the market continued to grow even after social distancing ended.

The digital detox movement has further increased attention to tabletop games, but their capacity to support health, general well-being and community-building goes much deeper than putting down your smartphone.

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Hobbies can bring joy, well-being, and focus to our busy lives, but so many of us don’t have one. If you’re ready to replace scrolling with stitching, or hustle with horticulture, The Hobby Starter Kit (a new series from Quarter Life) will help you get going.

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Building meaningful connections

Research on the COVID-19 pandemic showed how playing board games decreased stress, isolation and anxiety. Research also demonstrates that playing board games helps develop socio-emotional growth, strengthens relationships and builds community.

At Kansas State University, the Bonding thru Board Games program uses tabletop gaming to support the development soft skills, such as self-control, positive self-concept, social and communication skills and executive function.

Programs like this one recognize the capacity for board games to improve social connections, a critical component to health and wellness. Research shows that meaningful and stable social bonds supports emotional and mental well-being, impact cognitive abilities and influence our motivations and behaviour.

What’s changing, however, is the recognition that tabletop gaming also builds vital community. Andrea Robertson is the co-owner of Rain City Games in British Columbia. She has seen increased participation in store events over the last few years. Annual ticket sales increased from approximately 8,500 in 2024 to over 9,100 in 2025. She told me:

“We find that our store fills the role of a ‘third space’ for a lot of our customers. We hope our events help alleviate some of the rising loneliness and isolation among young people, offering a way to interact without the mediation of screens and algorithms.”

Space for Indigenous and racialized gamers

In 2021, David Plamondon co-founded Pe Metawe Games in Edmonton. It is Canada’s only Indigenous-owned board game store and is committed to reducing barriers and providing better access for marginalized communities in areas they have been historically excluded.

Plamondon is a Cree game consultant with strong community ties to Treaty 8 and Treaty 6 Territory. He told me that:

“Historically, the tabletop hobby has been unwelcoming, if not overtly hostile to many equity deserving groups, particularly LGBTQ2S+, women and BIPOC folks.”

He explained that poor representation, as well as socioeconomic and geographical factors, have excluded Indigenous folks from participating in tabletop gaming.

As a game consultant, Plamondon helps game developers ensure Indigenous Peoples are represented and part of the conversation when it comes to designing games that include Indigenous histories, communities, culture and storytelling traditions. He said:

“From a Cree perspective, the incorporation of Indigenous values into gaming spaces and game design is synonymous with building and protecting a community. So, when we opened Pe Metawe games, that was our primary focus: honouring Cree culture through creating a safe, welcoming and inclusive space for anyone who was willing to honour that ideal.”

From play to playtesting

Plamondon’s work reflects a new trend in the global gaming industry that emphasizes intentional and inclusive game design. It has led to the development of new kinds of gaming events. In addition to coming together to play games, gamers have started coming out in droves to help develop them.

The Vancouver Playtest Group (VPG) was established in 2018 to create a space for board game designers to gather and work on their prototypes. The group’s co-founders Mark Ellis and Noe Escobar see gaming groups as a great way to connect and meet new people. Escobar told me:

“Games teach us a lot about ourselves, through moments that are funny, or exciting, or frustrating. We share those feelings and go on a journey together. Pretty soon, you can find a whole new community of friends you might never have met otherwise.”

Academics have also begun to recognize the value of gaming’s capacity to build community. Beyond research on the value of playing games as a social enterprise, games studies as an academic field has turned to community as a model for intellectual inquiry.

At the University of British Columbia, our team recently launched the UBC Critical Play Lab and Fellows Program to develop a community of practice for games and game studies. Its mission is to innovate teaching, research and public engagement through games.

Our inaugural cohort of almost 30 scholars, students, and local game designers are collaborating on new research, knowledge mobilization and game design initiatives.

How to get started

If you’re looking to get into tabletop gaming, checking out in-person board game nights at a local venue is an excellent way to start. Search for local events online or pop by your local game shop for information on local board game or RPG groups. You can even try check out games at your local public library.

Game store staff are often experts in identifying the perfect new game for any player. Give them a sense of the kinds of games you’ve played or like, and they can provide you with a list of similar games or suggest accessible new games.

If you haven’t played a game in years, but want to try them out, here are my favourite starter games right now. Hues and Cues and Wavelength are easy party games with creative mechanics. Dominion and Ascension are great for getting started on deck-building games.

If you are a fan of Yahtzee and interested in adding a different kind of competition, Dice Throne is essentially magical combat with dice and endless character variations. And if you’re looking for a further twist on the classic dice game, but this time inspired by the Indigenous-futurist world of Coyote & Crow created by award-winning game designer and proud Cherokee citizen Kenna Alexander, check out Naasii.

My favourite “cozy” board game is Patchwork, which is easy to play while having a conversation. Another tile-laying game that is simple to learn and reflects the natural beauty of my home in the Pacific Northwest is Cascadia, and a great tile-grabbing game for the tiny humans in your life is Cobra Paw.

Ticket to Ride is always a crowd-pleaser among young and old alike with a wealth of geographies to choose from, and a new go-to game for my whole family is the two-player game Toy Battle, which is as much fun for adults as it is for the kids.

Elizabeth “Biz” Nijdam is Director of the UBC Critical Play Lab and receives funding from the University of British Columbia and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Not just a fun hobby: Board games can help build connections and reduce stress – https://theconversation.com/not-just-a-fun-hobby-board-games-can-help-build-connections-and-reduce-stress-279299

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rassim Khelifa, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology; Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Global Change Biology, Concordia University

Lobster had one of the greatest reputation makeovers in food history.
Once treated as “food for the poor,” it is now served in expensive restaurants, dipped in butter and presented as a delicacy.

Insects may be next. More than two billion people already eat grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, beetles and crickets — within varied food traditions across Africa, Asia and Latin America. They are valued for their taste, availability and nutritional content.

In Canada, however, insects are still more likely to be associated with infectious diseases than nutrition. We may happily eat shrimp, crab and lobster, but a cricket somehow crosses a psychological line, eliciting disgust.

Or does it? Our survey of adult visitors at the Montréal Insectarium revealed that 44 per cent of participants were open to eating insects. And around 87 per cent preferred products where the insect component was not visible, such as baked goods made with insect flour.

Alternative protein

Our food system is under pressure. Global demand for protein is rising, while conventional livestock production requires large amounts of land, water and feed. It also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems.

This has pushed scientists, governments and food companies to look for alternative proteins such as lab-grown meat, 3D-printed food or highly processed plant-based substitutes.

Insects, by comparison, are almost embarrassingly simple. They already exist, grow quickly and many species are rich in protein, fats, vitamins and minerals. Also, they can be farmed using way fewer resources than conventional livestock.

And yet, in a culture where people will add protein powder to almost anything, one of the planet’s most efficient protein sources still makes many people squirm.

Canadians are curious

In our recent study, published in Scientific Reports, we surveyed 252 adult visitors at the Montréal Insectarium to better understand how Canadians think about insect-based foods.

The results were more hopeful than a simple “yuck” story.

Overall, 44 per cent of participants expressed openness to eating insects. This included 18 per cent who had already eaten insects and would do so again, and 26 per cent who had not tried them but said they were willing to.

But curiosity is not the same as commitment. Only 27 per cent said they would include insects in their usual diet, and just 17 per cent said they would cook them at home. So, Canadians are not quite ready to replace chicken nuggets with cricket nuggets yet.

Disgust and fear

The clearest pattern in our study related to the visibility of the insects.

Participants were far more open to insect-based foods when the insects were hidden. About 87 per cent preferred products where the insect component was not visible, such as baked goods made with insect flour.

This shows that the barrier is not necessarily the ingredient itself. It is the image.

A muffin made with cricket flour still feels like a muffin. But a visible larva asks the eater to confront exactly what they are eating and for many people, that is where curiosity turns into disgust.

Disgust was the most common barrier in our study, reported by 70 per cent of participants. Others mentioned fear of insects, uncertainty about safety and health concerns.

These are not small obstacles. Food is emotional. We do not eat only with our stomachs. We eat with our memories, our cultural norms, our fears and our ideas of what belongs on a plate.

A familiar way to eat the unfamiliar

If insect-based foods become more common in Canada, this probably won’t start with whole fried beetles on restaurant menus. They may appear more quietly, inside foods we already understand: bread, muffins, pasta, protein bars, cookies, even pizzas.

People are more willing to try something unfamiliar when it arrives in a familiar form.

This does not mean disgust will disappear overnight. Food norms change slowly. Lobster did not become desirable because it became less strange looking. It became desirable because people learned to see it differently.

Our study suggests that most Canadians are not ready to fully embrace insects as everyday food, but they are not completely closed off either. Their openness depends on trust, safety, familiarity and, most of all, presentation.

The future of insect-based food will not be decided by protein content alone. It will be decided by whether insects can be accepted as safe and trustworthy “ingredients.”

It may begin with a simple cricket flour cookie. That may sound strange today, but so did lobster once.

Nadezhda Velchovska, undergraduate honours student in psychology with a minor in multidisciplinary studies in science at Concordia University, co-authored this article.

Rassim Khelifa receives funding from a NSERC CRC Tier 2 (CRC-2022-00134) and NSERC Discovery Grant (RGPIN-2024- 04564). He is a member of The Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science and The Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution.

– ref. Cricket nuggets? Caterpillar cookies? Canadians would consider eating insects if they can’t see them – https://theconversation.com/cricket-nuggets-caterpillar-cookies-canadians-would-consider-eating-insects-if-they-cant-see-them-282325