Roxborough Science Teacher Says Crickets Are Next Big Food Group

ROXBOROUGH -- A local science teacher says that bugs might need to be the next big food group.

It’s simple math.

Adison Lilholt, 30, a science teacher at Green Woods Charter School in Roxborough, says that by 2050, the world will have 2.3 billion more mouths to feed, which will require a 70 percent increase in food production, according to a PhillyVoice report.

Lilholt immediately understood that to be to high to be sustainable or environmentally friendly, the report states.

“By mass, there are more insects on earth than people,” Lilholt told PhillyVoice. “They’re really the ones running the planet here. There are so many opportunities with insects, and now I think people are starting to see you can eat them, and they’re not necessarily bad.”

He has launched ”BugYum,“ a public awareness brand, which attempts to show how bugs can be both a food source, and a delicious one at that.

People are generally creeped out by eating bugs, Lilholt realizes, but he said he thinks people will get over it, much as they have with sushi over the past few decades, the report states.

In Thailand, humans have been eating insects for centuries.

Image of mealworms courtesy Pengo - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Commons.