Lobsters used to be considered the “cockroach of the sea,” food fit only for indentured servants and prisoners. My, how times have changed.

Could the same change be coming for crickets?

Today, nearly 40 percent of habitable land is used to raise livestock and their feed.

By 2050, the UN projects global population will increase by two billion people—people who will need protein in their diet. There may not be enough real estate to produce today’s livestock for them.

For the same amount of protein, farming insects requires 5 times less feed, 15 times less land and 50 times less water than beef—and produces 80 times less methane!

Insects grow quickly, in days instead of months or years, produce huge numbers of offspring, and can be farmed vertically, like produce.

In fact, raising insects may have less environmental impact than many crops!

They can be fed organic waste. And their waste can then be used as fertilizer.

And they’re good for you. Insects are rich in amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Flour made from ground crickets has more iron than spinach and more calcium than milk.

The UN has catalogued 1,900 species of edible insects—and there are already two billion people who eat them: dried grasshoppers in Mexico, fried grubs in Africa, and roasted insects of all kinds in Asia.

Once we get a taste for them, they may wriggle their way into many more diets.