EVALUATION OF In-vitro FREE RADICALS SCAVENGING ACTIVITIES OF EDIBLE INSECTS

The urgent need to conserve agricultural resources and drastically reduce the environmental impact of animal food on the world has rekindled interest in entomophagy, or the practice of eating insects and invertebrates. Insects may play a role as sustainable and functional foods due to their composite nutritional content, which is a direct result of plant-based feeding, as well as its undeniably ecological features. The antioxidant properties of edible insects (raw sample) obtained during in vitro gastrointestinal digestion and absorption process were studied in this paper. Radical Scavenging Activity, Total Polyphenols Index, and Fe2+ Chelating Activity were used to assess the antioxidant potential of edible insect hydrolysates. The highest Radical Scavenging Activity noted for the edible insects are Bamboo worms (27.79 µg/ml), Crickets (26.73 µg/ml), House fly (30.03 µg/ml), locusts (36.78 µg/ml), Meals worm (32.61 µg/ml), Silkworm (35.08 µg/ml) and weaver ants (44.09 µg/ml). Total Polyphenol Index (TPI) of edible insects are Bamboo worms (385.12), Crickets (395.18), House fly (125.48), locusts (115.17), Meals worm (119.23), Silkworm (258.69) and weaver ants (249.23) mg GAE/100 g of defatted sample of 100 mL. The Fe2+ chelating activity for the edible insects are Bamboo worms (28.27 µg/ml), Crickets (27.15 µg/ml), House fly (30.66 µg/ml), locusts (37.28 µg/ml), Meals worm (33.19 µg/ml), Silkworm (35.75 µg/ml) and weaver ants (44.569 µg/ml).