Towards Functional Insect Feeds: Agri-Food By-Products Enriched with Post-Distillation Residues of Medicinal Aromatic Plants in Tenebrio molitor (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) Breeding

• Published in: Antioxidants Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 68
• Main Authors: Andreadis, Stefanos S, Panteli, Nikolas, Mastoraki, Maria, Rizou, Eleftheria, Stefanou, Vassilia, Tzentilasvili, Sofia, Sarrou, Eirini, Chatzifotis, Stavros, Krigas, Nikos, Antonopoulou, Efthimia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 28.12.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Animal husbandry; Antioxidants; Biogas; Biomass; Breeding; By products; circular economy; Climate change; Consumption; Diet; Dry matter; edible insects; Environmental economics; essential oils; Fatty acid composition; Feeds; Flavonoids; Food; Insects; Livestock; Medicinal plants; Natural resources; Nutrient content; Nutritive value; Oils & fats; Olive oil; Oviposition; Pathogens; Phenolic compounds; Phytochemicals; Proteins; Rice; Statistical analysis; sustainability; Tenebrio molitor; yellow mealworm; Greece; MAPs; edible insects; essential oils; yellow mealworm; sustainability; circular economy
• ISSN: 2076-3921; 2076-3921
• DOI: 10.3390/antiox11010068

Sustainability, circular economy and alternative production systems are urgent imperatives for humanity and animal husbandry. Unless wasted, agri-food by-products can offer a promising source of high value. We evaluated the effect of rice bran (RB), corncob (CC), potato peels (PP), solid biogas residues (BR), and olive-oil processing residuals (OR), as alternative substrates to wheat bran (WB as control), on the growth and nutritional value of during its breeding for animal feeds and/or human consumption. Innovation-wise, we further investigated the substrate supplementation (0, 10, 20%) with post-distillation residues of Mediterranean aromatic-medicinal plants (MAPs: lavender, Greek oregano, rosemary, olive; 1:1:1:1 ratio). larvae (TML) were reared in all the studied substrates, and TML and diets' proximate and fatty acid compositions as well as total phenol and flavonoid content and antioxidant potential were assessed using standard procedures. After statistical analysis of correlations, we observed that CC promoted oviposition and progeny survival; larval weight and dry matter were positively affected mainly by dietary energy and fat content; number of TML and/or larval weight increased using 10% MAPs inclusion in WB, RB and OR or RB, OR, BR and PP, respectively, which did not affect protein content; TML fatty acid composition decreased the content of saturated ones and increased that of mono-unsaturated ones; MAPs residues had an apparent favorable impact on total phenolic content and antioxidant activity of each substrate, with RB displaying the highest capacity and content. These findings indicate that alternative substrates can be exploited and their enrichment with natural phenolics is able to influence growth, offering highly beneficial and nutritional value.