Insect Farming’s Nutritional Benefits

Sanergy is a Kenyan sanitation company that franchises separation toilets to entrepreneurs in slum areas. The human feces are separated from the urine, and the feces are then used as a substrate to grow BSFL. The BSFL are boiled afterward to kill any pathogens. The larvae are sold to animal feed millers, who grind them into powder mixed with other ingredients. In interviews in 2019, Sanergy said it would open a new facility in Kenya in 2020 that would generate 400 tons of fertilizer and increase BSFL production from 7 to 300 tons per month (Holland 2019).

BioCycle is a community-based production site to treat human feces from everything from individual toilets to large sewer systems. The toilet resources are treated with BSFL. BSFL are the primary agent for turning toilet resources into multiple high-value components: oil (for lubrication and other fuel types), chitosan products, and nitrogen-rich soil conditioners. BioCycle was established in 2013 at the informal settlement of Klipheuwel in Cape Town, South Africa. In collaboration with Ethekwini Water and Sanitation, BioCycle runs a commercial-scale pilot plant with the capacity to process 30 tons of feces from urine-diverting toilets per day. BioCycle is also engineering a bespoke fecal reference plant that will produce data on combining different hazardous resource streams. The initiative will roll out micro businesses to employ local community members, while also improving and increasing local access to sanitation.

INSECT FARMING’S NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS

This section assesses the nutritional benefits for humans and livestock of consuming insects. It finds that insects provide similar levels of protein and micronutrients as animal source foods (ASF) and have health benefits for humans and animals alike.

Edible insects provide protein, a fundamental component for all biological systems. Protein plays an important function in human diets and overall health. Proteins are in the immune system’s antibodies, are in the enzymes that drive metabolic functions, and are the core structure of muscle tissue. Protein is made up of 20 organic, nitrogen-containing amino acids: protein’s “building blocks.” Humans can biologically synthesize 11 amino acids, while human diets must provide the other nine. Along with other ASF—like meat, fish, eggs, and dairy—insects are sources of high-quality protein because they provide high amounts of digestible essential amino acids. The protein quality of insects is considered very good at providing the essential amino acids for human nutrition (table 3.8) (Rumpold and Schluter 2013; Osimani et al. 2018). These amino acids include lysine, leucine, valine, histidine, tryptophan, threonine, methionine, isoleucine, and phenylalanine (FAO and WHO 2007). Studies show that insect protein is also highly digestible, making insects an even more valuable protein source (Poelaert et al. 2018; Longvah, Mangthya, and Ramulu 2011; Jensen et al. 2019).