Regarding its diet, the Very Hungry Caterpillar believes that you ought to be a little less critical of it.

Listen up, homo sapiens; in case all the nature programs you watch didn’t make it plain, out here in the wild, when it comes to food, we live by one simple rule: Eat what you can, when you can.

In the event that I come across an apple, pear, plum, slice of salami, some chocolate cake, or any other food and proceed to consume it, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from judging me. And it’s high time you got off my back about it already.

It is not possible for me to sneak into a restaurant and order the daily special, hire an Uber to fetch some Mickey D's, or ask my mother to reheat some lasagna when I am hungry. I would love to be able to do any of these things. As I go around here, I am searching for any and all edible items that I can get my teeth on. And in case you forgot, I’m not all that high on the food chain. So if I crawl over a sausage, daily suggested intake of whatever be damned, I’m going to get my eat on.

Yet for some reason, you want to act all high and mighty about my diet. Well, here’s a news flash. I recently spent a night on a windowsill where I observed one of you knock off an entire 12” pizza, a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, a bottle of Coke, and half a pack of Oreos in one sitting, but you don’t see me pointing antennas at people, do you?

Pop quiz: How much can a caterpillar’s body mass rise after it hatches? If you said up to 100 times, ding, ding, ding, you’re the winning winner chicken dinner—which I’ll be having, by the way.

Now, I’m no zoologist, but for all that growth to happen, I’m pretty sure I need to eat a shitload of food. At this stage of my life cycle, you could even say that eating is my work. But based on your performance review, what I’m hearing is that instead of growing up to realize my full potential, you want me to stop eating and die.

C’mon people. Raccoons consume garbage, vultures eat animal carcasses along the side of the road, and pigs eat their own dung. You don’t say anything about that, but I eat some junk food, and then I get a bellyache, and you’re all up in my grill. What gives?

Why don’t you focus on something a little more positive? Like how I’ll become a butterfly one day. You always talk about metaphorically expanding your wings but seem to forget I can sprout physical wings. That I ate a cupcake someone dropped in the park seems kind of petty in comparison, doesn’t it?

Have you ever thought that maybe I need all that food? I’m preparing to molt into a chrysalis and then spend a few weeks within it metamorphosizing. You better believe I’m going to do some hefty carb-loading beforehand.

Sure, I realize you go through changes, too. Like when you get bangs or whatever the latest hairstyle is. But what happens when you get home and take a look at yourself in the mirror? You think, “I’ve made a terrible mistake,” then cocoon yourself in a blanket and shame-eat an entire tub of ice cream. While people may say something about your hair like, “Interesting,” “You look fine,” or “It will grow back,” they don’t judge you for gobbling all that ice cream. But I can’t savor a single scoop cone before it’s off to my cocoon to convert into an altogether other insect without getting a whole lot of grief.

Isn’t food-shaming the kind of behavior that gets you cancelled nowadays?

So, maybe instead of giving me crap about my diet, you might take a moment and think, hey, the extremely hungry caterpillar eating all the food we don’t want is actually doing us a service by helping reduce waste.

Now stand back and let me finish off that chicken supper. Judgment-free, of course.