Do you dare to challenge a cup of cockroach milk?

Key Points

★ "Cockroach milk" is not ordinary milk, but a protein secreted by cockroaches.

★ "Cockroach milk" does have high nutritional value, but it is difficult to mass produce.

Recently, a hot search on Weibo really caught many people's attention... What is cockroach milk? Rumor has it that its nutrition is three times that of milk. Is it true?

From Weibo

The combination of cockroaches and food reminds me of the movie Snowpiercer. The people in the top carriages are living a life of luxury, while the people in the bottom carriages live in a small, dark environment, on a pile of manure, and eat protein blocks made of cockroaches and other insects.

In the movie, the ignorant people eat the milk in order to survive. But in real life, if I tell you clearly that the "milk" comes from cockroaches, would you still drink it?

Even I vomited several times while writing these words... However, as the saying goes, "I can't be the only one blind", I am going to grit my teeth and talk about it today, so that everyone knows what cockroach milk is?

01

What is cockroach milk?

At first glance, you might think that this is milk produced by cockroaches, but it is not! Cockroaches are not mammals and do not produce milk like cows, sheep, camels and other animals.

The so-called "cockroach milk" is actually a protein crystal, which mainly comes from a special kind of viviparous cockroach - Pacific Broken Wing Blattella. Among the approximately 5,000 species of cockroaches, Pacific Broken Wing Blattella is the only known viviparous cockroach, while the common "invincible cockroaches" in our homes are basically oviparous, not viviparous.

This protein crystal is used by Pacific cockroaches to feed their "cockroach pups". The larvae digest and absorb the protein liquid secreted by the mother cockroach in the body, which is cockroach milk. The cockroach milk forms protein crystals in the larvae's intestines. [1] According to people who have tasted this crystal, it does not seem to have any special taste and is not disgusting.

02

Is cockroach milk nutritious?

"Milk" with a special origin is often associated with "nutrition", such as goat milk, camel milk, buffalo milk, etc. However, there are rumors about cockroach milk that its nutritional value is more than three times that of cow's milk.

In fact, the study on cockroach milk did not intend to express this meaning, but rather stated that "a single crystal has more than three times the energy of an equal mass of dairy products." The "three times" here refers to the calories in cockroach milk, not all of its nutritional value. [2]

Regarding its nutritional value, an important foreign report in 2018 stated: Studies have shown that the crystal protein in cockroach milk contains a large amount of fat, sugar, protein and a particularly rich amount of amino acids. [3] It has a high nutritional density and high calories, so its nutritional value is quite good.

However, although cockroach milk is nutritious, it may not be easy to drink (who wants to drink it), because to get 100g of cockroach milk, you need to use 1,000 cockroaches, and it is really difficult to mass produce it.

03

Would producing cockroach milk be environmentally friendly?

Because the yield of cockroach milk is very low, it is very challenging to make a cup of pure cockroach milk directly from cockroaches. Fortunately, scientists can use molecular biology technology to take advantage of it.

According to researchers, if you want to mass-produce cockroach milk, the most feasible way is to do it through genetic engineering. That is, insert the cockroach gene into yeast, and use the yeast to produce a large number of crystals. In this way, cockroach milk may be mass-produced on a commercial scale. The key is that the process is not too disgusting, but I am afraid that this method of production will not be cheap...

Compared with traditional dairy farming methods, the production process of cockroach milk does have some positive effects on the environment. However, considering the public's acceptance, it is difficult to use it to replace milk.

Summarize:

From this point of view, the nutrition of cockroach milk is really high, but... I still... can't accept it! At least from the current point of view, I believe that no business will use "cockroaches" as a selling point to promote their products. Even if there is, I guess few people will buy it.

In addition, considering the difficulty of producing cockroach milk, it will definitely be expensive. It is too expensive to rely on it to supplement nutrition. It is better to spend more time on daily diet.

Author | Xue Qingxin, member of the Chinese Nutrition Society, registered nutrition technician, health manager, public nutritionist, reviewer | Song Shuang, associate researcher at the Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, editor | Jiang Fan, editor-in-chief | Ding Zong

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References:

doi: 10.1016/j.ibmb.2020.103333. Epub 2020 Feb 29. PMID:32119906; PMCID: PMC7293887.

[2].https://journals.iucr.org/m/issues/2016/04/00/jt5013/

[3].NiazK, Zaplatic E, Spoor J. Highlight report: Diploptera functata(cockroach) milkas next superfood. EXCLI J. 2018 Jul 25;17:721-723. doi:10.17179/excli2018-1437. PMID: 30190662; PMCID: PMC6123606.