Edible Insects as Food-Insect Welfare and Ethical Aspects from a Consumer Perspective.

A growing number of studies underline consumers' concerns about the importance of animal welfare as a general concept for consumers' purchase decisions. In particular, consumers perceive animal husbandry to be one of the most important aspects of animal welfare. Since intensive livestock production is criticized across society, the acceptance of current intensive production systems of edible insects is an issue of investigation. Criteria of insect welfare might differ from vertebrate welfare. One might argue that it is difficult to define standards for insect welfare due to their large diversity in living environments and feed requirements. In addition, it is debated whether insects are conscious and suffer from pain. It has been demanded to rear insects preferably under natural living conditions and some researchers proposed to consider them as sentient beings. Basic welfare and ethical aspects of insects as food and feed include species-specific mass rearing conditions and euthanasia, i.e., killing procedures. Consumers' opinions and concerns regarding this issue have hardly been considered so far. In this paper, the animal welfare of prevalent livestock is defined and outlined, and relevant criteria are transferred to insect welfare. Different ways consumers might arrive at an animal welfare understanding are discussed, along with an overview of the few consumer studies on insect welfare. Furthermore, we consider how insects are presented in the public discourse and infer how this might be relevant to consumers' perceptions of insect welfare.

Comparative Study of the Use of Insect Meal from Spodoptera littoralis and Bactrocera zonata for Feeding Japanese Quail Chicks.

A transformation of current livestock production towards a more sustainable operation is crucial to face nutritional and environmental challenges. There is an urgent demand for more sustainable high-quality feed sources to reduce environmental costs. Insects pose a potential alternative since they can be reared sustainably on food and feed residues. Know-how in mass rearing already exists for insect species used in biological pest control, such as the African cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis and the peach fruit fly Bactrocera zonata. The impact of a replacement of 50% of soybean meal by S. littoralis and B. zonata meal, respectively, on seven-days-old Japanese quail chicks was investigated in feeding trials. Concomitantly, the chemical compositions of the two insect meals and soybean meal were determined and compared. It was observed that the insect meals had higher protein and fat contents, lower carbohydrate contents and contained more saturated fatty acids than soybean meal. They also had higher methionine, and S. littoralis had a higher lysine content. Feeding trials resulted in improved growth, feed performance parameters, carcass characteristics, and biochemical indices for both insect meals. Consequently, both insect meals represent a promising alternative to soy in the feed of Japanese quail chicks.

Utilization of organic residues using heterotrophic microalgae and insects.

Various organic residues occur globally in the form of straw, wood, green biomass, food waste, feces, manure etc. Other utilization strategies apart from anaerobic digestion, composting and incineration are needed to make use of the whole potential of organic residues as sources of various value added compounds. This review compares the cultivation of heterotrophic microalgae and insects using organic residues as nutrient sources and illuminates their potential with regard to biomass production, productivity and yield, and utilization strategies of produced biomasses. Furthermore, cultivation processes as well as advantages and disadvantages of utilization processes are identified and discussed. It was shown that both heterotrophic algae and insects are able to reduce a sufficient amount of organic residues by converting it into biomass. The biomass composition of both organisms is similar which allows similar utilization strategies in food and feed, chemicals and materials productions. Even though insect is the more complex organism, biomass production can be carried out using simple equipment without sterilization and hydrolysis of organic residues. Contrarily, heterotrophic microalgae require a pretreatment of organic residues in form of sterilization and in most cases hydrolysis. Interestingly, the volumetric productivity of insect biomass exceeds the productivity of algal biomass. Despite legal restrictions, it is expected that microalgae and insects will find application as alternative food and feed sources in the future.

Recovery and techno-functionality of flours and proteins from two edible insect species: Meal worm (Tenebrio molitor) and black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae.

Depending on the species, edible insects are highly nutritious and thus represent a noteworthy alternative food and feed source. The current work investigates the protein extractability and techno-functionality of insect flour fractions recovered from Tenebrio molitor and Hermetia illucens. T. molitor and H. illucens flours contained about 20% crude fat and 60% and 36 % crude protein, respectively. Defatting reduced the crude fat content to 2.8% (T. molitor) and 8.8% (H. illucens) and increased the crude protein content to 68% and 47%, respectively. To isolate proteins from the flours, protein solubility was optimized by varying the pH, the ionic strength, and the extraction temperature of the solvent. All products and by-products accumulated in the protein production process were characterized by composition, selected techno-functional properties, protein solubility, composition and structure as well as their microbial load.

Nutritional composition and safety aspects of edible insects.

Insects, a traditional food in many parts of the world, are highly nutritious and especially rich in proteins and thus represent a potential food and protein source. A compilation of 236 nutrient compositions in addition to amino acid spectra and fatty acid compositions as well as mineral and vitamin contents of various edible insects as derived from literature is given and the risks and benefits of entomophagy are discussed. Although the data were subject to a large variation, it could be concluded that many edible insects provide satisfactorily with energy and protein, meet amino acid requirements for humans, are high in MUFA and/or PUFA, and rich in several micronutrients such as copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, selenium, and zinc as well as riboflavin, pantothenic acid, biotin, and in some cases folic acid. Liabilities of entomophagy include the possible content of allergenic and toxic substances as well as antinutrients and the presence of pathogens. More data are required for a thorough assessment of the nutritional potential of edible insects and proper processing and decontamination methods have to be developed to ensure food safety.