In that case, what if they get tied of us eating them?
Posted on 09/22/2023 12:45:36 PM PDT by Red Badger
New research found that replacing traditional proteins with mealworms in high-fat diets for mice could offer numerous health benefits including reduced weight gain and improved cholesterol. While there’s hesitation in Western societies about insect consumption, it’s an environmentally sustainable protein source.
With the world’s population on the rise and climate change intensifying, there’s an increasing need for sustainable protein alternatives. While plant-based “meat” and “dairy” have gained popularity, they’re not the sole green alternatives to traditional meat.
Research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, conducted on mice, indicates that substituting conventional protein sources with mealworms in high-fat diets could slow weight gain, improve immune response, reduce inflammation, enhance energy metabolism, and beneficially alter the ratio of good to bad cholesterol.
“In addition to more dietary fiber, nutritionists also recommend eating more high-quality proteins as part of a weight management plan. We knew from an earlier study in roosters that mealworms are a high quality, highly digestible protein source that’s also environmentally sustainable,” said lead study author Kelly Swanson, professor in the Department of Animal Sciences and interim director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences, both in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at U. of I.
Swanson’s team fed mice a high-fat diet (46% calories from fat) with casein, a protein from dairy, for 12 weeks before switching to the alternative proteins. Another group, the control, consumed a lean diet with casein throughout the experiment. By the time mealworms were introduced, the high-fat diet group was obese and experiencing metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions increasing the risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and other health problems.
Kelly Swanson, pictured, found mealworm protein can slow weight gain and improve blood metabolites in obese mice. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer, University of Illinois
The mice then started eating two types of mealworms in a dried, powdered form similar to flour, substituting either 50% or 100% of the casein in the diet. During and after 8 weeks on the experimental diets, the research team measured body weight, body composition, blood metabolites, and gene expression of the liver and adipose (fat) tissue.
Mealworm protein didn’t cause obese mice to lose weight, but their rate of weight gain slowed relative to mice consuming high-fat diets with casein. And the benefits went further than that.
“It’s not a weight loss situation; they just slowed their gain with the mealworms,” Swanson said. “The more significant impact was the improvement in their blood lipid profiles. Their LDL, so-called ‘bad cholesterol,’ went down and the HDL, ‘good cholesterol,’ went up. And from a gene expression perspective, inflammation went down and some of the lipid and glucose metabolism genes were altered. Not everything was positive, but metabolically, they were in a better place.”
Some of the benefits might have been associated with chitin, a fibrous material that makes up the exoskeleton of insects. Swanson said although the role of chitin hasn’t been well studied, it seems to act like a fiber, stimulating beneficial microbial activity in the gut. He has another paper in the works to characterize the effects of mealworms on the mouse microbiome. Other studies have evaluated alternative proteins for obesity weight management in mice, but most have used genetically altered mice designed to stay obese no matter what. Swanson’s team intentionally used “wild type” mice so they would gain weight the same way many humans do: through diet.
But are humans ready for mealworm protein?
“There’s a ‘yuck factor’ for many in Western societies, where eating insects is not quite normal, but some populations have relied on insect proteins for millennia,” Swanson said. “With protein shortages becoming a reality, there may be a place for insect meals.”
For now, though, mealworm protein hasn’t yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Insect-curious folks can try cricket flour, which can be used in foods according to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
“You’re not seeing legs or anything like that,” Swanson said. “It’s just a flour that shouldn’t negatively impact the taste or other properties of foods.”
Reference:
“Yellow Mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) and Lesser Mealworm (Alphitobius diaperinus) Proteins Slowed Weight Gain and Improved Metabolism of Diet-Induced Obesity Mice” by Yifei Kang, Catherine C. Applegate, Fei He, Patricia M. Oba, Miranda D. Vieson, Lorena Sánchez-Sánchez and Kelly S. Swanson, 16 June 2023, The Journal of Nutrition.
DOI: 10.1016/j.tjnut.2023.06.014
The study was funded by Ynsect.
And think of what it will do for your social credit!
Throw another cockroach on the ‘barbie!
I live in Maine for much of the year and won’t even eat sea bugs (lobster). What makes them think I’ll eat land bugs?
Feed them worms to Oprah!
No, I’m not eating bugs!
There's a 'bullsh!t factor' in everything coming out of leftist scientology too. Did one of Bill Gates' foundations fund this research, the Clintonistas, or one of O'Biden's CCP buddies perhaps?
Yep if you have to eat cockroaches you’re not likely to gain weight.
Why haven’t Doctors been prescribing insects for hundreds of years because It’s Stupid
Went away after a few years. Didn't pan out.
What goes around; comes around. There is nothing new under the sun.
John the Baptist lived on locusts and wild honey. I will bet that he wasn't fat, either. Not a lot of calories in grasshoppers.
Great — as long as it’s not coerced in any way by government.
Yum , insects loaded with Bacteria and Viruses
From the Gates Institute of Human Engineering.
Bill Gates is a Psychopath
They corner you and dare you to eat bugs. Beat you until you
chew and swallow. Then they force you to lick a frozen metal lamp post.
Detention anyone?
Greta can’t eat insects she a vegetarian
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