Allergens associated with edible insects unlikely to cause adverse health effects to consumers

Abstract

Insects represent a significant part of the diet for many communities and are delicacy in several countries in Africa, South America, Asia and Oceania. However, in western countries, the consumption of insects (entomophagy) is yet to be culturally and socially accepted (Orsi et al., 2019). Currently, more than 2,000 documented arthropods are being eaten worldwide (Kelemu et al., 2015). From a nutritional point of view, insects have an interesting nutritional profile, offering important sources of vitamins, minerals and animal-derived proteins. They also require less feed for each kg of food produced, and have higher relative growth and lower emission of greenhouse gases compared to livestock (Oonincx et al., 2010). Thus, considering their efficiency, edible insects could play an important role to meet the increasing demand for food, in particular as an important source of animal protein. Little is known on the food safety aspects of edible insects and this could be of critical importance to meet the society’s approval, especially if people are not accustomed to eating insects. Food allergy is an adverse immune response to food, which is caused by substances called allergens (type of antigens), which can result to a serious illness and sometimes death (Imathiu, 2020). Globally, food allergy is an emerging public health problem whose management along the food value chain continues to pose great challenge to the industry and professional health care practitioners. A wide range of foods containing protein can cause allergic reactions to sensitive people (Murefu et al., 2019).