Edible Aquatic Insects: Diversities, Nutrition, and Safety

Abstract

Edible insects have great potential to be human food; among them, aquatic insects have unique characteristics and deserve special attention. Before consuming these insects, the nutrition and food safety should always be considered. In this review, we summarized the species diversity, nutrition composition, and food safety of edible aquatic insects, and also compared their distinguished characteristics with those of terrestrial insects. Generally, in contrast with the role of plant feeders that most terrestrial edible insect species play, most aquatic edible insects are carnivorous animals. Besides the differences in physiology and metabolism, there are differences in fat, fatty acid, limiting/flavor amino acid, and mineral element contents between terrestrial and aquatic insects. Furthermore, heavy metal, pesticide residue, and uric acid composition, concerning food safety, are also discussed. Combined with the nutritional characteristics of aquatic insects, it is not recommended to eat the wild resources on a large scale. For the aquatic insects with large consumption, it is better to realize the standardized cultivation before they can be safely eaten.

Edible dragonflies and damselflies (order Odonata) as human food – A comprehensive review

“…(Figure 1a) is not only rich in protein, fat, carbohydrate and ash, but it is also excellent in phosphorus, iron, copper, calcium and contains all essential amino acids for human consumption (Maneechan and Prommi, 2021). Similar to that, the nymph of damselfly Lestes praemorsus was also found to have good amount of protein and rich with different kinds of essential acid amino (Zhao, 2021). According to Macadam and Stockan (2017), there are about 58 edible species of Odonata recorded worldwide.…”

“…Insects such as dragonflies and damselflies are used as food and play a significant part in the diets of the many ethnic communities worldwide (Mozhui et al, 2020). In general, dragonflies are great sources of protein (45% to 76%) (Ordoñez-Araque et al, 2022), which is more than that of traditional meat from animals (Zhao et al, 2021). Data on the protein content (Table 1) showed that Sympetrum species contains the highest amount of protein (76.75%) (Narzari and Sarmah, 2017), whereas Pantala sp.…”

“…The oil includes 1.23%-7.05% odd carbon fatty acids (OCFA), which resemble ordinary insect oil in their properties (Zhao et al, 2021). 18 to 29 different types of fatty acids, such as long-chain PUFAs, Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acids (DHA), are present in the oil of dragonflies (Jiang et al, 2017).…”

“…Moreover, studies revealed that the proteins from dragonflies not only include the necessary amino acids but also contain a good balance of various amino acids (Zhou et al, 2022). Zhao et al (2021) studied the content of the necessary amino acids in dragonfly nymphs from various geographic locations and discovered that there is minimal variation, even between distinct species. Dragonflies contain essential amino acids (EAAs) as well as non-essential amino acids (Supplementary Table S3).…”

Interest in Insects as Food and Feed: It Does Not Wane in the Public Domain

“…Aquatic insects, although consumed by many, feature less often in research on human entomophagy. This is why the paper by Min Zhao et al [ 31 ] is important. The authors reviewed what is known about edible aquatic insects and pointed out that the vast majority of the latter, in contrast to the phytophagous terrestrial edible species, are carnivorous.…”