Nutritional Benefits of Insects

Graphic by Anna Daugherty via www.multimedianewsroom.us/

Talking about nutritional facts without completely bamboozling you is tricky as there are many different facts, figures and considerations when looking at the nutritional benefits of insects, but hopefully there is something below that is new to you!

Insects also known as mini livestock or land shrimps (as some are members of the Arthropod family along with Crustaceans) have highly variable nutritional value due to the wide variety of species as well as the metamorphic* stages of insects.  Other factors contributing to the  varying nutritional value of insects is, like many other food, how they are prepared, cooked or processed (for example insects are highest in protein when in dried form) and what the insect has been fed on (whether it be grain or organic waste).  Therefore many nutritional facts and figures you see may vary for this reason.  

There are approximately 1900 species of insects currently being consumed throughout the globe, however, this nutritional overview will concentrate on species most accessible in the West due to ease of farming, familiarity and origin.  Insects for human consumption are currently being farmed in the Netherlands and these include mealworms, crickets, grasshoppers and buffalo worms.

The main nutritional benefits of insects are dietary energy, proteins, fatty acids, fibres, minerals and vitamins.  

Proteins
As  I'm sure you know, Proteins are essential nutrients for body growth and maintenance.  The table below comes from the Food and Agriculture Organisation report on the nutrition of edible insects and shows the comparison of protein per 100g with other meat and fish.  The chart shows that grasshoppers have a very similar protein content to fish and beef.

To make the comparison even easier to see, ediblebugfarm.com have produced this chart and I think you'll agree that crickets, grasshoppers and mealworms are very comparable to beef. 



Vitamins
Finke (2013) carried out studies, focusing on insects used to feed insectivores, also comparing the nutritional content such as protein, fat, dietary energy and vitamins of certain insects with other food sources and this is shown in the table below.  (Thiamin = vitamin B1 / Riboflavin = vitamin B2).  

As shown above Vitamin B1 and Vitamin B2 are two vitamins Finke has assessed and it is worth noting that these insects have been fasted and frozen rather than dried.  The chart shows the house fly to be very high in vitamin B1 and B2.  How many of you would be keen to sprinkle a few flies on your soup?

Vitamin B1 Comparison
Dried:  0.04 to 1.13 mg per 100g
Frozen:  0.1 to 0.4 mg per 100g 

Many other Vitamins Bs are present in these insects although Vitamin B12 (in food of animal origin) is found in mealworm larvae and house crickets but this is low in many other species.  

Many edible insects are an excellent source of iron have equal or higher contents of iron than beef.  The Food and Agriculture Organisation have the following figures for you to sink your teeth into!  (sorry!)  Other minerals include Zinc, calcium and Magnesium.

Iron Content of dry weight
Beef  6 mg per 100 g
Mopane Capterpillar 31–77 mg per 100 g

ediblebugfarm.com have also produced this wonderful chart to show you exactly how much goodness can be found in these tasty little fellas.




Fats
The good fats!  Edible insects are a considerable source of fat and their oils are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids and essential linoleic and α-linolenic acids.  Many insects also contain omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and the FAO have stated that insects could play an important role in by supplying these essential fatty acids.

I think you'll agree that from a nutritional glance that those insects that are available to us stand up pretty well against beef.  They are full of the good stuff and have less of the bad.  Will they become the next health food?
Well, they kind of already have!  Eat Grub  are just one of the companies that are making these accessible to people in the UK and Eat Grub have started selling there goodies to Planet Organic.  I will be posting about their products on the blog post very soon!

Although this is a brief overview of a complex subject, I hope you've found some useful information.  Why eat cheap meat that is not healthy when you can eat a mini herd of micro livestock?!

Further details about nutritional content can be found in the FAO report entitled 'Nutritional Value of Edible Insects for Human Consumption' on the 'References' page.

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* Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation.

Finke, Mark D. "Complete nutrient content of four species of feeder insects."Zoo biology 32.1 (2013): 27-36.

The History of Entomophagy

Why don't we eat insects in the UK when an estimated 2 billion people around the world are eating them?  Are we missing out?

Entomophagy is the term used to describe the act of eating insects by animals and humans but this website will be referring to mainly insects for human consumption. Having said that, using insects for animal feed will be explored as a valid contribution towards a more sustainable food system.

There is a long, global history of humans eating insects including in Western countries. A text written by Frederic Freeman in 1858 recalls a comical incident where French troops, who had set up camp in a field upon landing in America, were seen from a distance to be running around the field "in a strange disorder". On closer inspection it was revealed that they were chasing grasshoppers around the field to capture them and BBQ them on their fire. The French were not the only ones at it!

Insects were hunted and foraged like all other food that we have become to know as familiar.  In fact, a recent foraging course that I went on reminded me of the wide variety of other nutritional plant based food species that have been forgotten.    Insects are currently consumed by an estimated 2 billion people across Africa, Asia, Central and South America and Australia. They have a low impact on resources and the environment, they are high in energy to body mass conversion and are full of protein, vitamins and minerals. So why are insects no longer part of the Western diet? It has been suggested that the evolution of agriculture in the West led to the domestication of animals and plants and the simplification of agro-ecosystems. Animals chosen for domestication were the most valuable in terms of the products and services they provided, for example, large mammals which supplied meat, milk, leather and transport. Bees and silkworms were also domesticated for the products they provided. As agriculture developed, the need for hunting and gathering was less and insects were no longer viewed as wild food but as pests that threatened our crops and stable food system.

Our climate is also very different to those countries that still consume insects resulting in their insects being larger and in abundance, making them easier to harvest with a stable, year round supply.

Photo from Indiegogo.com

In some countries insects are harvested as a form of pest control instead of spraying with chemicals and then sold for consumption - makes good sense doesn't it?!.   Although insects have been used to tackle poverty related malnutrition in developing countries and used to supplement diets when food crops are scarce, they are more often eaten out of choice for there flavour and nutritional value. There are reports that the sale of beef is reduced significantly when are particular caterpillar is in season in some African countries and I experienced first hand the excitement of the seasonal flying termite in Laos when children were overjoyed at the annual arrival of these bugs and captured them to fry for our pre dinner snack. On this occasion I was certainly more mortified by the slaughter of the piglet for our main course than I was to consume a flying insect!

Insects have always been food and still are for many people globally. It is simply our agricultural development and climate that led the West away from the inclusion of insects in our food system. Now that our population is growing, the current food system is under pressure and we have new technologies to support farming, food production and storage, is it time to revisit Entomophagy?