Abstract
Antioxidant potential of weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina (adult & brood) and termite Odontotermes sp the two common species of insects used as food by tribes of Arunachal Pradesh and elsewhere in India. Our findings highlight the antioxidant potential of these two insects. DPPH• scavenging activity IC50 (µg/mL) ranged from 59.56 (weaver ant adult) to 66.30 (termite). Termite species scored higher ABTS•+ scavenging activity (IC50: µg/mL), Ferric reducing power (TPEE µg/g) and phenolics (mg GAE/g) (18.70, 36.60 and 626.92) than weaver ant adult (52.57, 211.21 and 369.69) and weaver ant brood (33.34, 114.32 and 486.04). On the other hand, weaver ant adult scored higher flavonoids (mg RTE/g) (663.43) than its brood (387.19) and termite species (58.04). Weaver ant brood contained substantial amounts of phenolics and flavonoids, comparatively higher than phenolics of weaver ant adult and flavonoids of termite. These two insects may serve as an ideal dietary food supplement for handling oxidative stress and as a replacement for some conventional food products. However, further study is needed to find out the bioactive compound at the individual species level.
Highlights
Antioxidants are substances that can prevent or slowdown the damage to cell caused by free radicals, produced in the body as a reaction to environmental or other pressures [1]
The interest in the use of insects as food in this state has been reported in several earlier studies [6,7,8,9,10] and has revealed 102 edible species of insects belonging to 13 different orders taken as food by one or the other 26 major tribes of Arunachal Pradesh [11]
Our study on the antioxidant potential of these insects, demonstrates that these two insects might serve as an ideal dietary food supplement for handling oxidative stress and as a replacement of some conventional food products
Summary
Antioxidants are substances that can prevent or slowdown the damage to cell caused by free radicals, produced in the body as a reaction to environmental or other pressures [1]. Weaver ant and termite have been known for a long time to be popular food insects in Arunachal Pradesh and in many parts of the world [12,13,14,15] [8-11including other parts of India [11] Given this widespread acceptance of these two kinds of insects as human food, except for our investigation on nutrient content analyses [6], no detailed information on antioxidant activity of the Indian species has been published to date except a very preliminary investigation by Raza et al [5]. Our study on the antioxidant potential of these insects, demonstrates that these two insects might serve as an ideal dietary food supplement for handling oxidative stress and as a replacement of some conventional food products
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