Meet the six-legged superfoods
Grasshoppers and silkworms have an antioxidant capacity similar to fresh orange juice, says study.
For the first time, a study has measured antioxidant levels in commercially available edible insects.
Sure, most of them don’t have six legs – and scorpions, spiders, and centipedes aren’t even insects.
And while even ladybirds fart, insects have a tiny land, water, and carbon footprint compared with livestock – so anything that encourages insect-eating is good news for the planet, too.
Look who’s come crawling back
Faced with eating ourselves and the planet to death, the West has begun reluctantly to consider creepy crawlies as a more sustainable alternative to meat and animal products.
“At least 2 billion people – a quarter of the world’s population – regularly eat insects,” says senior study author Prof. Mauro Serafini, of the University of Teramo. “The rest of us will need a bit more encouragement.”
“Edible insects are an excellent source of protein, polyunsaturated fatty acids, minerals, vitamins and fiber. But until now, nobody had compared them with classical functional foods such as olive oil or orange juice in terms of antioxidant activity.”
Antioxidant activity is that free-radical scavenging ability that typically designates a ‘superfood’ – although this poorly defined term is eschewed by researchers, says Serafini.
The study
The researchers tested a range of commercially available edible insects and invertebrates, using various measures of antioxidant activity.
Inedible parts like wings and stings were removed, then the insects were ground and two parts extracted for each species: the fat, and whatever would dissolve in water.
The first insect antioxidant rankings
Water-soluble extracts of grasshoppers, silkworms and crickets displayed the highest values of antioxidant capacity – fivefold higher than fresh orange juice – while giant cicada, giant water bugs, black tarantula and black scorpions showed negligible values.
Note that these comparisons are for the dry, fat-free insect dust – a tad tougher to swallow than fresh OJ. Even so, some quick math shows that at the same dilution (88% water), grasshoppers and silkworms would have about 75% the antioxidant activity of OJ.
Interestingly, the total content of polyphenols – the major source of plant-derived antioxidant activity – followed a similar pattern across species, but was far lower in all insects compared to OJ.
“Fat from giant cicadas and silkworms showed twice the antioxidant activity of olive oil, while black tarantula, palm worm and black ants are placed at the bottom of the ranking.”