Edible insects, which insects can be grown and eaten

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KCN, 11.01.2019 18:46

Good day, dear forumchane!

I've read articles about edible insects:

https://masterok.livejournal.com/1480259.html
https://hightech.plus/2018/07/06/blyuda-iz-...storanah-evropi
https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/insects-food
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic...081007228000115
And then there's
https://www.precisionnutrition.com/eating-bugs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects_as_food

And I asked myself: what is it really possible to grow at home (shed, pantry, basement, garage, balcony) and eat from insects?
From environmental and economic considerations, it is clear that the insect should be herbivorous, it is not profitable to grow carnivores.

- Madagascar and Cuban cockroaches disappear because of aesthetics (my girlfriend and mother are negative about them).
"earthworms - for the same reason.

I have experience in growing butterflies from caterpillars, dragonfly larvae, tarantula and crossbill spiders, earwigs, black garden ants, a little wasp, neocardine shrimp, earthworms (for fishing in a bucket of leaf humus), Cuban and Madagascar cockroach-at home and in a shed / garage.
I know how to take care of bees (I help my neighbor-grandmother in the country).

From shellfish: I tried to eat grape snail and toothless, but I didn't like the taste of both - like rubber with a peculiar taste. In the aquarium kept ampulyarii and coils.

The choice fell on silkworms and crickets.
What do you recommend? Maybe what specific types?
Recommendations? How to grow it?

Comments

12.01.2019 9:20, KCN

They also write about the use of insect protein for baby food:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10...1541-4337.12014
https://www.africa.com/grasshoppers-and-loc...rich-baby-food/
http://time.com/3824917/crickets-sustainable-protein/
https://nv.ua/ukr/radio/shodene-zavtra/jizh...iv-2485502.html
http://greenbelarus.info/articles/17-06-20...erma-v-belarusi
https://zen.yandex.ru/media/zzdorov/muka-iz...dceb7cdf1d2e1b5
https://www.delfi.lv/woman/eda/recepty/ukus...43206490&page=5

And since insect protein is present in baby food, it is known that baby food is often used by bodybuilders and athletes to gain muscle mass along with or instead of protein (from casein, for example).

Are insects really that nutritious? Although we are not surprised to eat crustaceans (lobsters, crayfish, crabs, shrimp) or shellfish (octopus, squid, oysters, grape snail)? As far as I know, these two groups of invertebrates have very nutritious and easily digestible protein, of dietary quality.

13.01.2019 14:06, KCN

Here's another question: I decided to compare the effectiveness of using insect protein.
If a person weighing 70 kg needs 100 grams of protein per day, and the protein content in minced insects is 17%, then this means 0.588 kg of biomass is needed per day. Per year: 215 kg of biomass.
Using the rule of the ecological pyramid, insects need to feed 2150 kg of plant food per year.
It can be used for cricket: legume leaves, mulberry and acacia leaves, carrot and beet tops, nettle, dandelion, non-starchy vegetables (pumpkin), fruits (apples, pears), grain, wheat, legumes.

I want to compare it with a pig, for example.
But here is the question: for a pig, the protein content in meat and the feed coefficient (the mass of feed in kg that must be fed to the animal in order to get a 1 kg increase in biomass) are known. So, if you feed with mixed feed, the feed coefficient is 3, and the percentage of protein in meat
is 11-17%. That is, to supply protein to 1 person, you need 0.588 kg per day, 215 kg per year ( 2-3 pigs per year), 645 kg of mixed feed.
Naturally, the figures are too high, since a person can not eat 600 grams of fat pork per day, he receives proteins from other sources. But in our case, let it be a "spherical meat eater in a vacuum" that eats nothing but meat

Drawing analogies with carp (a poikilothermic animal that does not spend energy on maintaining a high body temperature), which has a feed coefficient of 1.5 to 3, depending on the quality of the feed, we can assume that in poikilothermic insects it is also somewhere around 1.5.
If we compare it with the meat of cancer, also an arthropod, then there is approximately 16 100% protein and lots of water, little fat and even less carbohydrates.
Then a person will need 0.625 kg of arthropod biomass per day, or 229 kg of biomass per year. Taking into account the feed coefficient of 1.5, we get about 343 kg of vegetable feed per year.
This is 1.88 times less than for a pig.

Questions:
1. What is the percentage of protein in insect biomass?
2. What is the feed ratio for herbivorous insects, such as crickets?