January 2017 | The Ento Podcast

Finnish researchers develop food ingredients based on insects

Technical Research Center of Finland, VTT has developed food ingredients from mealworms and crickets, which are expected to be used in food processing in the future.

The raw materials based in insects can be used to produce meatballs and falafel, said VTT in a press release issued on Thursday.

Researchers at VTT have developed a dry fractionation method, which can easily produce insect fractions with different flavors and degrees of coarseness, it said.

Fat is removed from the insects before the fractionation, so the insect fractions contain up to 80 percent of crude protein. The insect fractions are suitable ingredients for various solid foods.

VTT said it has tested the fractions as raw materials to make meatballs and falafel balls by replacing 5 percent to 18 percent of ingredients.

As a result, a small addition of the insect fractions into falafel ingredients tripled the protein content of falafel balls, as insects are rich in high-quality protein, explained VTT.

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Source:Xinhua

Researchers still insisting that people in the U.S. will eat bugs for protein

For most folks in the United States and Europe, the thought of eating bugs is repulsive. For the majority of people everywhere else, it’s just part of life.

And while crunching on a cricket or slurping down a grub (ala Simba in Lion King) seems like something only people on Fear Factor would consider, the truth is, insects are an excellent source of protein.

That’s why food science researchers at BYU, led by assistant professor Laura Jefferies, are looking at how to process insects, specifically crickets, to make them more palatable to the western world.

“By themselves they taste kind of earthy, but when you eat them with other things they don’t necessarily have their own flavor,” said student Fred Bassett. “I’ve had them chocolate covered and the taste and texture is a lot like a Kit Kat bar.”

“But,” adds Jefferies, “Most people [in the western world] don’t want to eat a whole cricket.”

INSECT FOOD GROUP WILL BUILD BUZZ IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

The ASEAN Food and Feed Insects Association, which will represent insect food manufacturers in Southeast Asia, hopes to make an impact on both public awareness and industry standards. One of its cofounders says the group’s agenda may be an easier sell in that part of the world.

The edible bug industry is looking for some fresh bites.

Last year, the U.S.-based North American Edible Insects Coalition took steps to get itself off the ground, launching its first annual meeting. Meanwhile, other groups like Little Herdshave also tried to stake a claim on this market in the United States. In Europe, there are at least three organizations promoting the concept of edible insects.

The newest addition to the list? The ASEAN Food and Feed Insects Association (AFFIA), which launched in August. (ASEAN stands for Association of Southeast Asian Nations.)

In an article for Food Navigator, Massimo Reverberi, whose Thailand-based company Bugsolutely is among AFFIA’s founding members, noted that Southeast Asia is a stronger market for insect-based food products than other parts of the world, but the organization still faces a bit of an uphill battle.

While messaging and public education will be a priority, AFFIA will put a strong focus on building up guidelines and best practices for an industry with little oversight or standardization, Reverberi said:

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BY ERNIE SMITH – Associations Now

Insect pasta sauce makers want you to eat bugs

TORONTO — Imagine grabbing a mealworm powder smoothie for breakfast, snacking on chocolate chip and cricket cookies at work and coming home to a big bowl of pasta drenched in a cricket bolognese sauce.

A number of entrepreneurs are banking on this environmentally friendly, nutritionally dense protein hopping into the average Joe’s diet and are cooking up products to help make these critters a pantry staple.

“It’s moving away from the novelty. It’s moving away from the fear factor,” says Eli Cadesky, co-founder and CEO of C-fu Foods in Toronto.

The company sells textured insect proteins that can replace traditional meat, soy, eggs or dairy when cooking. His second company, One Hop Kitchen, uses the product to make two bolognese sauces — one with crickets and the other with mealworm.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations encourages entomophagy — or the eating of insects — because of its environmental and health benefits.

Most insects likely produce less greenhouse gases, require less water and feed, and need less land than traditional livestock, according to the FAO. They also tend to be high in fatty acids, fibre and micronutrients, and don’t tend to transmit diseases to humans.

A bottle of One Hop Kitchen’s pasta sauce costs US$9.99.

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Follow @AleksSagan on Twitter.

By Aleksandra Sagan, The Canadian Press