Edible Insect Nutrition Information

Insects are the Largest and Most Successful Group of Animals on the Planet

It is estimated that insects comprise 80% of all animals (insects are animals). Around 1 out of every 5 animals is a beetle. By weight, insects weigh over 5X that of humans and are around half the total weight of all animals on earth. There are around 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) insects alive today. That’s about 1.4 billion insects for each person.

Maybe insects are what’s missing from our North American diets?

Accepting insects as food makes sense. Insects are nutritious, sustainable, environmentally friendly, and raised humanely.

The nutritional value of insects varies considerably from insect to insect. The flavor and texture of each insect also vary making this a new and ancient culinary experience.

This may be a recent trend in North America and Europe, yet, around the world, 80% of countries eat insects every day and have been since the dawn of human existence.

Our southern neighbor, Mexico, enjoys nearly 200 different edible insects. Thailand has over 20,000 insect farms and one of Cambodia’s top exports is edible insects. The Mopane Worm is considered a delicacy in Zimbabwe, the Witchety Grub in Australia, Queen Ants in Columbia. It’s obvious that here in the United States and Canada, we’re the ones missing out.

Insects are packed with real animal protein, beneficial fats, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and they are a prebiotic fiber. They’re animals we eat whole (all parts as opposed to just the meat) and their nutrients are more bio-available than livestock muscle tissue or even wheat.

One of the challenges, and also benefits, of raising insects is that they are what they eat in a significant way. Feed crickets carrots and they will be high in vitamin A. We can work with and control their diets to obtain an optimal product.

Insects are the new frontier in nutrition. We know enough to begin but there is still so much more to discover.

Insects offer a complete animal protein that includes all 9 essential amino acids. Insects have a wide but strong range of nutritional values and are very competitive with other protein sources.

Cricket powder is an easy way to add protein to your diet. Cricket powder can be added to baking flour, included in smoothies, or sprinkled on your breakfast cereal.

It should be noted that the insect protein data here does not take into account variations in insect diets. Many farms are now producing crickets and mealworms with higher protein values.

Speaking of insects in general is tough because every insect’s vitamin and mineral content varies by type and diet. However, the one thing that is consistent is that they are a great resource for many hard to obtain vitamins. The body can absorb these vitamins and minerals at a rate that is higher than beef or wheat.

As an example, we will look at the cricket raised on a high protein grain diet. They are packed with B vitamins being especially high in B12. In fact, crickets offer over triple the amount of B12 when compared to salmon. They are also a good source of the biologically active form of vitamin A and Riboflavin (also known as B2).

When it comes to minerals, edible crickets pack almost five times as much magnesium as beef and three times as much iron. They supply more calcium than milk and they are high in zinc.

Eating insects can help maintain a healthy gut biome. Chitin is the exoskeleton of an insect and it has valuable properties in its own right. Chitin is a prebiotic fiber, basically nutrients for probiotic gut bacteria.

Chitin has also shown promise in preventing the development of inflammation in the colon.

A lot of research is currently being done on chitin’s potential benefits.

On top of the amount of protein, fats, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals provided, insects are more digestible than other protein sources. Your body can absorb more of what is available.

Plus, when we eat other animals we leave out the heart, liver and other internal organs. Generally, we only eat the muscle tissue. With edible insects, we eat the whole animal and this adds a myriad of other nutritional benefits.

Edible insects are available to just about anyone anywhere, They can be grown at home, on small farms, and by large industrial firms.

This makes them a powerful answer to food security problems.

A comprehensive source can be found on the U.N.’s F.A.O. website:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e06.pdf