Hi guys! The theme for February is particularly interesting to me because it is centered around myself instead of the actions of others or on another environmental topic. Although I’m involved in many environmental clubs and organizations both inside and outside of my school, I would like to use this opportunity to share one specific community I believe has the potential to make a significant impact on environmental issues: Bughouse365.

I co-founded Bughouse365 with other high school students across the city to support a unique cause: edible insects. Although it may sound disgusting, we believe that the consumption of edible insects can significantly better the environment.

In Bughouse365, there are several things we do. However, our main activity is operating a YouTube channel with the same name. In this YouTube channel, we focus on making cooking tutorials and introducing recipes including purchasable edible insects to promote the consumption of edible insects. We also make videos visiting and promoting edible insects in large exhibitions, along with visiting other areas such as the farms where edible insects are cultivated and sent out. I have attached some photos of our Youtube videos to this report!

Besides running our Youtube channel, we also operate several sideline activities such as creating and distributing several-hundred board games with cute edible insect characters to youth centers. As Vice President, I participate in, plan, and organize many Youtube videos, and also help raise funds to operate our channel and other activities.

After reading all this, you may ask: So what’s the point of putting in all of this effort to promote edible insects? Well, consuming edible insects has various benefits to the environment. The main way it helps is by acting as a replacement for meat as it contains large amounts of protein. Replacing meat when they are consumed regularly slows the production of the meat industry which is known to be devastating to the environment by driving climate change through the release of greenhouse gases, “[releasing] harmful substances like antibiotics, bacteria, pesticides, and heavy metals into the surrounding environment,” and clearing out obscenely large amounts of land (1). 

On that note, I encourage every one of you to try or at least promote the consumption of edible insects! There are several ways to consume edible insects in “less disgusting” ways such as adding its powder into recipes like pizza or lattes. You can check our Youtube channel out for more details! :)

Sources:

https://www.cleanwateraction.org/features/meat-industry-%E2%80%93-environmental-issues-solutions#:~:text=There%20are%20three%20big%20environmental,takes%20vast%20quantities%20of%20feed.&text=This%20releases%20harmful%20substances%20like,metals%20into%20the%20surrounding%20environment.