Abstract
Simple SummaryThe food industry is notably investing more resources on the production of nutritious, healthy, safe and sustainable products derived from edible insects. In this sense, natural extracts (or concentrated forms of compounds from natural sources) are usually food ingredients with added value for human health. This is due to their intrinsic beneficious biological activities; however, bioactive extracts from edible insects have been scarcely explored. Due to that and considering that the bioactivities of extracts might be conditioned by parameters of the technological process, we assessed how different extraction conditions, such as the defatting of the raw insect flours or the extraction solvents employed, affected two bioactivities of the resulting extracts from insects: the blocking of the digestion of fats from the diet by evaluating the inhibition of the responsible enzyme (pancreatic lipase), as well as their antioxidant activity. T. molitor and H. illucens were used, as they are two of the most known edible species for both feed and food. We observed a multibioactivity for all the extracts. Both tested processing factors differentially modulated the bioactivity of extracts from both species. We also analysed the composition of the H. illucens extracts and detected amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, sterols and organic acids.The production of specific insect extracts with bioactive properties for human health is an emerging and innovative field for the edible insects industry, but there are unexplored extraction factors that might modulate the bioactivity of the extracts. Ultrasound-assisted extracts from T. molitor and H. illucens were produced. Effects of defatting pre-treatment and extraction solvent were evaluated on extraction yield, antioxidant activity and pancreatic lipase inhibitory effect. Chemical characterisation of defatted extracts from H. illucens was performed by GC-MS-FID. Non-defatted extracts showed higher extraction yields. Defatted extracts had similar extraction yields (around 3%). Defatted extracts had higher antioxidant activity, T. molitor being stronger than H. illucens. Antioxidant activity of T. molitor methanol extract was higher than the rest of solvents. Aqueous ethanol improved the antioxidant activity of H. illucens extracts. All extracts inhibited lipase, but no significant effect of defatting and solvent was observed for T. molitor. A significant higher inhibitory activity was observed for H. illucens, the strongest being defatted 100% and 70% ethanol H. illucens extracts. H. illucens extracts contained free amino acids and disaccharides, together with minor fractions of lipids, sterols and organic acids. These results evidence the potential of extracts obtained from edible insects as antioxidants and inhibitors of the pancreatic lipase, a simultaneous multibioactivity that might be favoured by the defatting pre-treatment of the samples and the solvent of extraction.
Highlights
Current popularity towards edible insects has been related to their role as an alternative to traditionally consumed fats and proteins from animal sources, as they cover the dietary needs of humans with the additional advantage of being a sustainable food with a low environmental impact [1]
In January 2021 European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) ruled for the first time on the first application for a novel food made from insects, T. molitor, concluding a positive opinion considering that it is safe under the proposed uses and use levels [4]
The inhibition of the pancreatic lipase by edible insects is a quite novel bioactivity that we reported for the first time for non-defatted extracts of T. molitor and A. domesticus [16]
Summary
Current popularity towards edible insects has been related to their role as an alternative to traditionally consumed fats and proteins from animal sources, as they cover the dietary needs of humans with the additional advantage of being a sustainable food with a low environmental impact [1]. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) considered for the first time ‘whole insects and their parts’ as novel foods from 1. Food and Toxicological Safety section), from the European Commission has authorised the production of dried yellow mealworm as a novel food [5]. Together with their nutritional value, evidence show that edible insects contain a huge diversity of other micronutrients and compounds different from fats and proteins, such as fibres, minor lipid compounds, phenolic compounds, alkaloids and other compounds yet to be discovered. Multiple different bioactivities are being reported recently in the literature for edible insects, including anti-inflammatory, antiproliferative, antioxidant, antiangiogenic or antimicrobial, studies are still scarce [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
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