Regenerative Care 

︎ Creators: Celine Huang & Ashley Paik
︎ Supervisor: Peter Yeadon


Regenerative Care is an insect-based food system that was designed for a Japanese elderly home. The approach combines the nutrition of Japanese rhinoceros beetle larvae with the therapeutic benefits of cordyceps’ anti-inflammatory and antioxidants compounds.

Cordyceps, an entomopathogenic fungus, are used in traditional East Asian medicine to treat fatigue and kidney disease. Studies show reductions in cell aging as well as improvements to the body’s use of oxygen, lipid control, and heart health associated with consumption of cordyceps and its primary active ingredient cordycepin. According to a research paper by Turk et al. in 2022, Cordyceps militaris grown from Japanese rhinoceros beetle larvae contained the highest cordycepin levels of the six edible insects tested. The larvae also contain high levels of protein and “good” fats. By producing both cordyceps and larvae, this regenerative system supplements the diets of our elderly by providing nutrients their aging bodies need.

Due to the long life cycles of the beetles, we organize our system by weeks, with rows of containers representing each week of the 50-week cycle. Each container hosts about 10 larvae each and has a lid on the bottom with a selectively detachable mesh for sifting inside. The primary control center of our system is the beetle room, where the week 1-4 (egg and first instar) containers reside and where many of the interventions (e.g., cordyceps inoculation, fasting) occur. When a row of containers enters week 5, the second instar, most of the containers will split off into the hallways on each side of the beetle room, with 54 containers on one side to be inoculated with cordyceps and 54 on the other side to be eaten as larvae. Five containers will remain in the beetle room to grow breeder beetles for regeneration.

As they grow through second and third instar phases over 28 weeks, the cordyceps and edible beetles will slowly move along tracks attached to the hallway ceilings of the elderly home. The bottoms of the containers will function as ceiling panels above the scaffolding of a Japanese coffered ceiling, where each grid is the width of a container. At each turn of the hallway, the containers will be either half- or fully-sifted by electromagnetically opening the bottom surface and rotating the container to remove frass, which will then be composted. New flake soil substrate is added as needed via concealed feed pipes in the ceiling.

Once the edible and cordyceps larvae have reached week 36, they will re-enter the beetle room for processing and are fully-sifted upon arrival. The cordyceps larvae containers are then treated with spore-filled wash water to inoculate the larvae. The mesh at the bottom of the container is then completely removed to allow the week’s larvae to exit onto a large tray. The cordyceps fruiting bodies are manually harvested at 8 weeks and the remaining larval bodies used for compost. On the other side, the edible larvae are rinsed with regular water and left to fast for 2-4 days before being ready to eat. Both the cordyceps trays and fasted larvae containers are located next to the door to the kitchen.

In addition to the cordyceps and edible larvae, the breeder larvae are left to grow into adults. Females are selectively bred in new flake soil-filled containers and are moved to a different container each week as they lay their eggs for that week. After breeding, the males are taken to the beetle battleground next to the elderly home’s courtyard, where residents can battle each other with their fighter beetles. Beetle fighting is a common children’s game in Japan.

For 60 residents, this system produces 540 edible larvae (9 larvae per resident), 1350 g dried cordyceps (3.2 g per day per resident), 1250 eggs to return to the start of the cycle, 2100 L of compostable frass & flake soil to be used as fertilizing compost, and 25 male breeder beetles for residents to battle with.