Abstract
Edible insects are increasingly being considered as food and feed ingredients because of their rich nutrient content. Already, edible insect farming has taken-off in Africa, but quality and safety concerns call for simple, actionable hazard control mechanisms. We examined the effects of traditional processing techniques—boiling, toasting, solar-drying, oven-drying, boiling + oven-drying, boiling + solar-drying, toasting + oven-drying, toasting + solar-drying—on the proximate composition and microbiological quality of adult Acheta domesticus and Ruspolia differens, the prepupae of Hermetia illucens and 5th instar larvae of Spodoptera littoralis. Boiling, toasting, and drying decreased the dry matter crude fat by 0.8–51% in the order: toasting > boiling > oven-drying > solar-drying, whereas the protein contents increased by 1.2–22% following the same order. Boiling and toasting decreased aerobic mesophilic bacterial populations, lowered Staphylococcus aureus, and eliminated the yeasts and moulds, Lac+ enteric bacteria, and Salmonella. Oven-drying alone marginally lowered bacterial populations as well as yeast and moulds, whereas solar-drying alone had no effect on these parameters. Oven-drying of the boiled or toasted products increased the aerobic mesophilic bacteria counts but the products remained negative on Lac+ enteric bacteria and Salmonella. Traditional processing improves microbial safety but alters the nutritional value. Species- and treatment-specific patterns exist.
Highlights
Insects are part of the diets of humans and domesticated animals in many parts of the world.They have been consumed by communities for many years, and were suggested as a resource that could be used to ease global food shortages [1]
Survival of Salmonella sp. in the larvae was dependent on the contamination level with little or no retention at the lower levels, possibly because of competitive exclusion by the endogenous larval microbiota and/or because of antibacterial activity of the larvae. These findings indicated that some bacterial species have a competitive advantage and become dominant depending on the insect species
Dry matter (DM) contents of the fresh A. domesticus, R. differens, H. illucens prepupae, and S. littoralis larvae ranged between 26–35% (Table 1)
Summary
Insects are part of the diets of humans and domesticated animals in many parts of the world. They have been consumed by communities for many years, and were suggested as a resource that could be used to ease global food shortages [1]. Edible insect species that are considered unsuitable for consumption by humans have been used as ingredients to substitute conventional protein sources, e.g., fishmeal in poultry, fish and pig feeds, contributing indirectly to human diets [4,5,6]. Already in East Africa, edible insect farming initiatives have taken off, and some countries have developed regulatory mechanisms to mainstream their production and use, for example, in animal feeds [7]. There are opportunities for farmers to produce edible insects, which can be delivered to food and feed factories as a raw material for manufacturing value-added products
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