Abstract
Edible insects have great potential to be human food; among them, aquatic insects have unique characteristics and deserve special attention. Before consuming these insects, the nutrition and food safety should always be considered. In this review, we summarized the species diversity, nutrition composition, and food safety of edible aquatic insects, and also compared their distinguished characteristics with those of terrestrial insects. Generally, in contrast with the role of plant feeders that most terrestrial edible insect species play, most aquatic edible insects are carnivorous animals. Besides the differences in physiology and metabolism, there are differences in fat, fatty acid, limiting/flavor amino acid, and mineral element contents between terrestrial and aquatic insects. Furthermore, heavy metal, pesticide residue, and uric acid composition, concerning food safety, are also discussed. Combined with the nutritional characteristics of aquatic insects, it is not recommended to eat the wild resources on a large scale. For the aquatic insects with large consumption, it is better to realize the standardized cultivation before they can be safely eaten.
Highlights
Human beings have a very long and rich history of entomophagy, especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America [1,2,3,4]
saturated fatty acids (SFAs) are dominated by palmitic acid (16:0) and, to a lesser extent, by stearic acid (18:0), and oleic acid (18:1) is the most abundant composition among monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), which is generally similar to the reported terrestrial species
The presence of relatively substantial amounts of these polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) was possibly associated with membrane fluidity, because PUFAs have a lower melting point than SFAs or MUFAs, which helps aquatic insects to better adapt to the cold-water environment
Summary
Human beings have a very long and rich history of entomophagy, especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America [1,2,3,4]. Edible aquatic insects have a long history of utilization [5] too. These insects could have great potential to service humans with nutrition and health benefits; for example, the captured biomass of aquatic insects in Zaire (Central Africa) has already reached a very high value, with 16 tons/year in 1989 [17]. As compared to edible terrestrial insects, such as the black soldier fly, mealworm, cricket, and grasshopper, fewer aquatic insects appear in the market and daily life, and the same situation exists in terms of research. What is the difference or potentiality between the use of edible aquatic insects and terrestrial insects? ‘aquatic insects’ refers to aquatic and semi-aquatic insects in or from freshwater
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