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Comparison of nutritional values of different edible insect species
Maňhal, Daniel ; Kouřimská, Lenka (advisor) ; Kulma, Martin (referee)
The worlds limited agricultural resources will soon no longer be able to continue to support its ever growing population. One way to alleviate this problem is to integrate insects into the human diet, which is an increasingly common practice in Asia, Africa and South America. This practice has proven to be beneficial in a number of ways. Insects have better feed-conversion efficiency, transforming organic matter into larger amount of edible body mass than traditional livestock. Comparing to the livestock, insects have much smaller ecological impact on the environment. On the other hand, allergic reactions to toxins produced by some insects represent a potential risk of entomophagy. Nutritional values of insects depend on many factors, such as type of insect, its developmental stage, sex, and consumed feed. Generally, insects are a rich source of nutrients comparable to or even higher than traditional sources of meat.
Nutritional values of farm raised field crickets (Gryllus assimilis), originating from the Czech Republic, were analyzed in the experimental section of this thesis. Specifically, contents of dry matter, crude protein, fat and fatty acid profile were the main focus. The dry matter content was determined using an infrared technique. The crude protein content was measured using the Kjeldahl method. The Soxhlet method was applied for fat extraction. Extracted fat was determined gravimetric. Using gas chromatography, a lipid profile was obtained. Measured values were compared to those found in the literature. Emphasis was put on the comparison with other types of potentially edible insects and on the nutritional values of wild and farmed insects. Finally, these nutritional values were compared to the corresponding nutritional values of conventional meat to illustrate the benefits of entomophagy.
The analyzes showed that insect originating from the Czech Republic had very similar qualitative composition to species from different geographical regions and its nutritional value is fully competitive with conventional meat.
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