A recent research has claimed that there are fair chances that people might see beetle larvae known as mealworms someday in supermarket shelves, as it seems that they can prove to be a perfect replacement for chicken, beef, pork and milk.

With the demand for chicken, beef, pork and milk rising gradually, and estimated to rise by 80% between 2012 and 2050, it seems there is lot of scope for the same in the time to come.

As of now, livestock occupies 70% of all farmland. It's also known that removing livestock could actually affect environment badly. Moreover, it has been added that there is limited information available on the environmental impacts associated with insect production.

It has been found that growing mealworms produced less greenhouse gases as compared to cow milk, chicken, pork and beef. Moreover, growing mealworms will only consume 10% of the land used for production of beef, 30% for pork and some 40% for chickens to generate similar amounts of protein,

"Since the population of our planet keeps growing, and the amount of land on this Earth is limited, a more efficient, and more sustainable system of food production is needed", said researcher Dennis Oonincx at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.