Low transfer of cadmium, lead and aflatoxin B1 to eggs and meat of laying hens receiving diets with black soldier fly larvae reared on contaminated substrates

Unravelling mycotoxin biotransformation by the black soldier fly and house fly

“…Multiple studies have shown that BSFL do not exhibit any negative effects of AFB1 on their survival and growth (Bosch et al 2017;Camenzuli et al 2018;Chapter 4;Meijer et al 2019;Niermans et al 2023b). Thus far, only one study has observed a slower development in BSFL upon provision of much higher (± 800 μg kg DM-1) concentration of AFB1 as investigated in the current study (Heuel et al 2023). Furthermore, exposure of other insect species to higher concentrations (ranging from 800 -10,000 μg/kg) of AFB1 resulted in negative effects on growth and development.…”

“…Interestingly, research to date has shown that BSFL are highly tolerant and do not bioaccumulate AFB1, DON, FB1, OTA and ZEN present in the substrate (Bosch et al 2017;Camenzuli et al 2018;Chapter 4;Leni et al 2019;Niermans et al 2023b;Purschke et al 2017). Only Heuel et al (2023) has observed a slower larval development in comparison to an uncontaminated control after spiking food waste with 800 μg AFB1 kg DM -1 . Similar to the other studies, even at these high concentrations, only small amounts of AFB1, below legal limits for feed in the EU were found in the larvae and frequently attributed to undigested substrate in the larval digestive tract.…”

“…These results are promising but evidence is lacking on the utilization of naturally contaminated maize in subtropical and tropical regions. To date, most studies on the utilization of mycotoxin-contaminated substrates with BSFL were completed at a laboratory scale, with high quality substrates and/or one or several artificially spiked mycotoxin contaminations (Bosch et al 2017;Camenzuli et al 2018;Heuel et al 2023).…”

Mitigation Strategies against Food Safety Contaminant Transmission from Black Soldier Fly Larva Bioconversion

“…BSFL do bioaccumulate heavy metals and other elements depending on what is present in the feed, meaning some studies find no bioaccumulation of certain elements that other studies do. The bioaccumulation factors for cadmium and manganese are consistently the highest, followed by arsenic, lead, iron, zinc, mercury, copper, chromium, magnesium, potassium, and tin; these factors are consistently below 1 (no bioaccumulation) for aluminum, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, silver, or vanadium [ 6 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 ]. While this could reduce the suitability of the insects for use in feed, it does serve to decontaminate the substrate and produce a cleaner residue for downstream uses [ 8 , 54 , 57 ].…”

“…Toxicity increased if multiple compounds were in the substrate at the same time, or if synergists like piperonyl butoxide were added. Prior work suggests BSFL have high tolerance to aflatoxins and other mycotoxins and do not bioaccumulate them [ 49 , 51 , 60 , 68 , 69 , 70 ] though some may persist in their gut contents. While some plant toxins, like genotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) and tropane alkaloids, were degraded from the substrate during BSFL bioconversion, others bioaccumulated in the larvae at varying rates: high for europine, rinderine and echinatine and very low for most other PAs and atropine and scopolamine [ 71 ].…”