Yes, insect-derived ingredients are in some foods, and they have been for longer than most people realize. But the picture is more nuanced than viral headlines suggest. Some insect ingredients, like the red dye carmine, have been in everyday products for decades. Newer insect proteins, like cricket powder, are showing up in a growing number of items. And a baseline level of incidental insect fragments has always been present in staple foods like chocolate, flour, and peanut butter simply because insects exist where crops are grown and processed.
Insect Ingredients Already in Common Foods
The most widespread insect-derived ingredient in the food supply is carmine, a bright red pigment made from crushed cochineal insects. It’s used in yogurt, candy, fruit drinks, ice cream, butter, cheese, and cosmetics. Carmine has been a commercial colorant for centuries, and the FDA requires it to be listed on labels by its specific name: either “cochineal extract” or “carmine.” It cannot be hidden under vague terms like “artificial color” or “color added.”
Another common insect product is shellac, sometimes labeled as “confectioner’s glaze” or “resinous glaze.” It comes from the secretions of lac insects in Southeast Asia, and it’s used to give a shiny coating to candies like Whoppers, pharmaceutical pills, and even fresh fruit. The harvesting process involves crushing insect-coated tree branches and washing the resin, which inevitably contains insect material. Shellac has been used in food for many years, predating any recent push toward insect protein.
Cricket Powder and Newer Insect Proteins
What’s genuinely new is the emergence of whole insects and insect powders marketed as protein sources. Cricket powder (made from house crickets) is the most common. You can find it in protein bars, protein shakes, baking mixes for brownies and pancakes, and even yogurt. In European markets, about 23% of insect-based food products are protein bars, 19% are powdered products, and 33% are whole dried insects sold as snacks, sometimes flavored with things like lime and chili.
The European Union has formally approved four insect species for human consumption as “novel foods”: yellow mealworm, migratory locust, house cricket, and lesser mealworm. The most recent authorization came in January 2025 for UV-treated yellow mealworm powder. Each approval specifies the forms allowed (frozen, dried, powdered) and includes labeling and safety requirements.
In the United States, the regulatory picture is less formal. The FDA doesn’t have insect-specific food regulations. Instead, it treats insects the same as any other food: they must be clean, produced under sanitary conditions, and properly labeled. Companies can seek “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) status for a specific insect species, but this has to be done species by species, and the process is slow. Because regulations are still catching up, companies selling insect-based food in the U.S. essentially market at their own risk. Insects farmed for animal feed cannot be redirected to the human food supply.
Can Insects Be Hidden on Labels?
This is the core concern for many people, and the short answer is: insect ingredients must be identified on food labels. The FDA requires carmine and cochineal extract to be listed by name. For any ingredient seeking GRAS status, manufacturers must provide an “appropriately descriptive term” for the substance, including its taxonomic source down to the genus and species level. You won’t find cricket powder disguised as “natural flavors” or buried under a generic term in a properly labeled product.
That said, shellac can appear under the names “confectioner’s glaze” or “resinous glaze,” which don’t immediately signal “insect product” to most consumers. If avoiding insect-derived ingredients matters to you, those are terms worth recognizing on a label.
Insect Fragments in Everyday Staples
Separately from intentional insect ingredients, trace amounts of insect material end up in many foods as a natural consequence of agriculture. The FDA’s Food Defect Levels Handbook sets the thresholds at which contamination becomes an actionable problem. Below these levels, the presence of insect fragments is considered unavoidable and not a health concern.
The numbers are eye-opening. Chocolate can contain an average of up to 60 insect fragments per 100 grams before the FDA considers it a defect. Peanut butter allows up to 30 fragments per 100 grams. Wheat flour allows up to 75 fragments per 50 grams. These thresholds exist because it is physically impossible to grow, harvest, and process crops in a completely insect-free environment. This has always been the case, long before insect protein became a topic of conversation.
Why Insects Are Being Promoted as Food
The push to incorporate insects into the food supply is driven primarily by environmental and nutritional arguments. Crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and about half as much as pigs or chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Insect farming generates far fewer greenhouse gases and requires much less land than conventional livestock. Organizations like the World Economic Forum have pointed to insect protein as one potential route to feeding a growing global population without intensifying the environmental damage caused by traditional agriculture.
Nutritionally, some insect species are genuinely protein-dense. Mealworm larvae contain around 24 to 25 grams of protein per 100 grams, which is comparable to or slightly higher than beef sirloin or chicken breast (roughly 19 to 21 grams per 100 grams). Certain species are also rich in iron. However, insects fall short of meat in other nutrients: they contain less vitamin B12 (topping out at about 1 microgram per 100 grams compared to 1 to 8 micrograms in various meats), and their saturated fat, thiamine, and niacin levels are generally lower. Insects are a legitimate protein source, but they aren’t a perfect nutritional substitute for meat across the board.
Allergy Risks Worth Knowing About
If you have a shellfish allergy, insect protein deserves caution. Insects and crustaceans like shrimp share a protein called tropomyosin, and research has confirmed that consuming insects can trigger allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, in people with shellfish allergies. The degree of cross-reactivity varies by insect species. Some species show significantly less cross-reactivity with shrimp than others, but the risk is real and not always predictable. EU labeling rules for approved insect foods require allergen warnings for this reason.
This is especially relevant because insect powder can appear in products where you wouldn’t expect it, like a protein bar or baking mix. Checking ingredient lists is the most reliable way to avoid an unexpected exposure if you have a known shellfish allergy.