By now, the campaign in favor of insect-based nutrition has started on the part of the usual bigots of the sustainable, or I would say compostable, left, with even the Union having officially authorized the sale of the protein “cricket flour”.
But how safe is insect-based food? If man has not eaten anything, except occasionally, for thousands of years, there is no way this new interaction will cause any health problems beyond character problems. There is still very little research, especially when it comes to edible insects. The IZSV, the Venetian experimental zooprophylactic institute, has published a collection of this little literature in the journal Virus, and the results deserve due attention.
In the insects examined in the research, the presence of more than 70 species of viruses, belonging to 22 different families, was confirmed. There are no reports of virus detection for two species, A. grisella e H. illucenswhile for other species the reports were sometimes limited or dated. The Orthoptera order (crickets, grasshoppers, etc.) seems to be the most affected: seven viral families identified, including Iridoviridae not Densoviridae, generally considered the most dangerous.
The order of lepidoptera (represented by G. mellonella) is affected by viral species belonging to the families Baculoviridae, Iridoviridaewhile i Densovirus they are rarely reported; other viral species reported to infect G. mellonella they are family members Dicistoviridae, Parvoviridae e Picornaviridae. In the order of beetles viruses belonging to households have been reported for their mortality Iridoviridae e Parvoviridae. Only two viruses were finally described as pathogenic to diptera.
Viruses found in edible insects may be non-pathogenic or pathogenic to the insects themselves, humans and/or animals. Insect pathogenic viruses constitute a risk for insect mass breeding systems, as they are capable of causing high economic losses by causing both a drastic drop in growth in the juvenile stages and in the reproductive performance of the adults, up to causing a high and rapid mortality. In addition, some insect-borne viruses that are pathogenic to humans or animals could pose a risk to public health if not properly managed when insects are used to produce food and feed.
Therefore, by granting the authorization to consume insect flour, the way has been paved for experimentation on humans. Obviously now they will also contest IZSV, but you, what will you do?
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