Insect protein is protein derived from edible insects, most commonly crickets, mealworms, and black soldier fly larvae. It’s sold as whole roasted insects, ground into flour, or processed into protein powder and used as an ingredient in bars, pasta, snacks, and animal feed. Depending on the species and processing method, insect-based ingredients contain roughly 50 to 70 percent protein by dry weight, putting them in the same range as conventional meat sources.
How It Compares to Meat and Plant Protein
Insect protein contains all nine essential amino acids, which makes it a complete protein source in the same category as meat, eggs, and dairy. However, the amounts of certain amino acids fall slightly short of ideal levels. Cricket protein scores 0.85 on the amino acid scoring system used by the World Health Organization, with tryptophan as its weakest link. Mealworm protein scores lower at 0.71, limited by its lysine content. For comparison, beef and eggs score at or near 1.0, while common plant proteins like pea and faba bean score around 0.69 to 0.70. So insect protein sits between conventional animal protein and plant protein in terms of quality.
Digestibility testing in more controlled studies has confirmed that cricket protein qualifies as a “good-quality” protein source for both children and adults, using the newer DIAAS scoring method that measures how well the body actually absorbs each amino acid. One species of mealworm also met that threshold for older children and adults, though not for young children under three.
Beyond protein, edible insects deliver meaningful amounts of iron, zinc, and vitamin B12, nutrients that are generally comparable to or higher than what you’d find in lean beef, pork, poultry, or kidney beans. That vitamin B12 content is notable because it’s almost entirely absent from plant-based protein sources, making insects an unusual non-meat option for people concerned about B12 intake.
Why Insects Use Fewer Resources
The environmental case for insect protein comes down to efficiency. Crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and about half as much as pigs or broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Because insects are cold-blooded, they don’t burn calories maintaining body temperature, so more of what they eat converts directly into body mass.
Water use follows a similar pattern. Producing one kilogram of beef requires roughly 15,400 liters of water, while mealworms need about 4,341 liters and black soldier fly larvae just 1,293 liters. That puts insect farming on par with or below chicken production, which requires around 4,300 liters per kilogram.
Greenhouse gas emissions tell a more nuanced story. Insect protein generates an estimated 3.9 to 7 kg of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of protein. That’s dramatically lower than beef at 35 kg CO2 equivalent per kilogram of meat, and lower than pork at about 7 kg. But it’s not always better than chicken or fish, which come in around 6 kg CO2 equivalent. The exact numbers depend heavily on what the insects are fed, how the facility is heated, and how the final product is processed.
How Insect Protein Is Made
The production process starts with farming. Crickets and mealworms are typically raised in climate-controlled facilities on plant-based feed like wheat bran, cereal flour, and vegetables such as carrots. Once harvested, the insects are frozen, cleaned, and ground into a paste. That paste is dried at high temperatures and milled into a fine, uniform flour.
For higher-concentration protein products, manufacturers add a defatting step, using a solvent to remove the insect’s natural fat content. The defatted powder then undergoes protein extraction, where alkaline solutions, mild acids, or enzymes separate the protein from the remaining carbohydrates and fiber (mostly chitin, the same structural material found in shrimp shells). The extracted protein is freeze-dried into a powder with less than 5 percent moisture. The result is a shelf-stable ingredient that can be blended into protein supplements, baked goods, or pasta without significantly changing the taste or texture of the final product.
Allergy Risks and Cross-Reactivity
If you’re allergic to shellfish, insect protein may trigger a reaction. Insects and crustaceans are both arthropods, and they share several proteins that the immune system can mistake for one another. The most significant of these is tropomyosin, a muscle protein so structurally similar across invertebrate species that more than 60 percent of shellfish-allergic patients react to it regardless of the source. Another shared protein, arginine kinase, triggers reactions in 21 to 50 percent of allergic adults and up to 67 percent of allergic children.
This cross-reactivity also extends to dust mites and cockroaches, which share the same allergenic proteins. People with dust mite allergies may therefore react to insect-based foods even if they’ve never had a known shellfish allergy. Allergic reactions to edible insects can range from mild skin symptoms to severe systemic responses, so this isn’t a theoretical concern.
Regulatory Status
In the European Union, edible insects are regulated as “novel foods” under a 2015 framework that requires each species to undergo a formal safety assessment before it can be sold. As of 2025, the European Food Safety Authority has approved several species including yellow mealworm, house cricket, and migratory locust, concluding that no safety concerns arise from their toxicological profiles. Each approval specifies the forms allowed (frozen, dried, powdered) and the types of food products they can be added to.
In the United States, the FDA regulates insect-derived food ingredients under existing food safety laws rather than through a separate novel food approval process. Manufacturers are responsible for ensuring their products are safe, properly labeled, and produced under sanitary conditions. Cricket flour and mealworm powder are commercially available in the U.S. market in protein bars, snack foods, and standalone powders, though the market remains small compared to conventional protein sources.
Common Forms on the Market
Insect protein shows up in several forms depending on the intended use. Whole roasted crickets and mealworms are sold as snacks, often seasoned with flavors like barbecue or sea salt. Cricket flour is the most versatile format: a fine, slightly nutty-tasting powder that blends into smoothies, baked goods, and protein shakes. Concentrated insect protein isolates, with the fat and chitin largely removed, are marketed as sports nutrition supplements with protein content comparable to whey or casein powders.
In animal feed, black soldier fly larvae have become the dominant insect species. Their larvae are high in protein and fat, grow quickly on organic waste streams like food scraps, and are already approved as feed ingredients for poultry, aquaculture, and pet food in both the EU and the U.S. This side of the insect protein industry is growing faster than the human food market, largely because it sidesteps the consumer acceptance challenges that still slow adoption of insects as people food.