Amino acids profile of catfish, crayfish and larva of edible <i>dung</i> beetle

Abstract

Protein is an important nutrient for growth and development of humans and its quality depends on the types and composition of its amino acids. The amino acid profile of dung beetle larva was determined and compared with those of catfish and crayfish by HPLC using Applied PTH Biosystem amino acid analyzer. The data obtained were analyzed with inferential statistics of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and means separated using Least
Significance Difference (LSD). The results showed that there were significant differences in the samples for all the set criteria for amino acid quality: total amino acid (F = 219.9), percentage amino acid (F = 1095.4), 2, 6 2, 6 essential amino acid score (F = 2588.4), essential to non-essential amino acid ratio (F = 236.7) and predicted 2, 6 2, 6 protein efficiency ratio (F = 1049.4) all at P < 0.05. About 66.7% of the essential amino acids in dung beetle 2, 6
larva satisfy human nutritional requirement while amino acids like tryptophan, histidine and threonine were significantly higher in dung beetle. The amino acid score of this insect was higher as it has the potential of over 100% protein synthesis as against 68.2% and 80.9% respectively for catfish and crayfish. Moreover, a consumption of 46 g of dung beetle larva can effectively satisfy the daily human amino acid requirement. The study concluded that the protein quality of insects especially dung beetle larva compared favorably with commonly consumed human protein diets like catfish and crayfish. Therefore entomophagy should be encouraged in the face of the present dwindling availability of animal protein food sources.

Keywords: Amino acid score, Entomophagy, Protein energy malnutrition, Dung beetle