Nutritional Value, Food Ingredients, Chemical and Species Composition of Edible Insects in China

Abstract

As the prevailing food cultures, edible insects could be dated back to ancient China. It is becoming clear that insect resource can be mass‐produced in sustainable development food utilization. China could introduce insects into modern western diets. It is a precious resource considering the nutritional value, food ingredients and chemical composition of species. Meanwhile, the edible insects’ consumption also led to a challenge of addressing food security, nature conservation and the erosion of traditional food culture. We summarized the resourceful edible insects containing the nutrition substance, such as essential proteins, amino acids, fatty acids, carbohydrates, vitamins, mineral elements and other functional ingredients with the insect secondary metabolite, including the flavonoids, alkaloids, polysaccharides, hormones and phospholipids, which have high economic value for development and utilization.Based on the history, custom, plasmid resource, production and status of edible insects in China at present, it has been proven that the development of insects food well matches the need for human health in China.