A dried cricket is about two-thirds protein by weight, closer to chicken than to any plant, and it carries all nine essential amino acids in adequate ratios 1. On the modern protein-quality scale, cricket and mealworm flour land beside milk and egg, well above pea or wheat 2.
Iron is the surprise. Fed to human gut cells, iron uptake from cricket, mealworm, and locust matched or beat sirloin beef 3. The B12 is real: bacteria in the insect's gut make the same molecule they make inside a cow 4.
The gut effect is the odd one. Twenty healthy adults eating 25 g of cricket powder a day for two weeks grew nearly six times more Bifidobacterium and dropped a blood inflammation marker, with no side effects at any dose 5. The active fraction is chitin, the exoskeleton fibre your bacteria ferment; strip it out and the effect goes with it 6.
Buy the flour, not the snack. Cricket-flavoured chips carry a few percent cricket by weight; the microbiome dose needs concentrated intake.
What a daily scoop buys you.
- Week two: your gut bacteria have shifted, measurably, though you won't feel it 5. If your iron ran low from cutting red meat, the scoop holds it steady.
- Over a year: swapping a kilogram of beef a week saves carbon on the order of a transatlantic flight you didn't take 7.
- The real payoff isn't in your body. It's a complete-protein answer to "I'd eat less red meat if there were a good substitute."
Cricket powder runs about $50–100 a kilogram, so a daily scoop costs roughly $1–2.50, near a whey habit and above eggs. It keeps a year sealed in the pantry, and its mild earthy flavour vanishes in baking.
The fine print — when to skip it, and what people get wrong
Allergic to shrimp, crab, lobster, or dust mites? Crickets share the proteins your immune system reacts to, and the first exposure is the dangerous one. Don't test it yourself; ask an allergist about a supervised challenge 89. With IBD, clear chitin with your gastroenterologist first.
"Insect protein is incomplete." Insects are animals and carry all nine essential amino acids 1. "Zero environmental impact." Far below beef, but a closer fight against chicken, tighter still when insects are grain-fed 10.
Two ways it fails: disgust sends you back to chicken at the shop 11 (powder in familiar food beats the roasted skewer), and grazing on flavoured chips never reaches the 25 g dose. Put the powder in something you eat by volume.
- 1van Huis et al. (2013). Edible insects: future prospects for food and feed security (FAO Forestry Paper 171). link
- 2Van de Walle et al. (2023). Mealworm larvae (Tenebrio molitor) and crickets (Acheta domesticus) show high total protein in vitro digestibility and can provide good-to-excellent protein quality as determined by in vitro DIAAS. Frontiers in Nutrition. link
- 3Latunde-Dada et al. (2016). In Vitro Iron Availability from Insects and Sirloin Beef. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. link
- 4Mlcek et al. (2014). A review of the nutritional value of edible insects and their effect on human health. Central European Journal of Public Health. link
- 5Stull et al. (2018). Impact of Edible Cricket Consumption on Gut Microbiota in Healthy Adults, a Double-blind, Randomized Crossover Trial. Scientific Reports. link
- 6Borges et al. (2024). Chitin and omega-3 fatty acids in edible insects have underexplored benefits for the gut microbiome and human health. Nature Food. link
- 7Smetana et al. (2016). Sustainability of insect use for feed and food: life cycle assessment perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production. link
- 8Ribeiro et al. (2018). Allergic risks of consuming edible insects: A systematic review. Molecular Nutrition & Food Research. link
- 9EFSA (2022). Safety of partially defatted house cricket (Acheta domesticus) powder as a novel food pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2015/2283. EFSA Journal. link
- 10Oonincx et al. (2010). An Exploration on Greenhouse Gas and Ammonia Production by Insect Species Suitable for Animal or Human Consumption. PLOS ONE. link
- 11Hartmann & Siegrist (2015). Becoming an insectivore: Results of an experiment. Food Quality and Preference. link
Edible Insects (Crickets and Mealworms)
Cricket powder retails at ~$50–100/kg; daily 25 g portion runs $450–900/year. Minor but real; comparable to whey protein, several-fold the cost of eggs delivering equivalent protein/B12.
Minor daily action (scoop into shakes/baking), but the disgust-and-neophobia threshold is a real one-time cost documented in Western consumer-acceptance literature (Hartmann 2015). Once cleared, the effort drops to scoop-and-mix.
Strong on composition (multiple analyses), DIAAS protein quality (Van de Walle 2023), Caco-2 iron bioavailability (Latunde-Dada 2016), and sustainability LCA (Oonincx 2010, Smetana 2016). The microbiome and inflammation signal rests on one good RCT (Stull 2018, n=20) with in-vitro replication. Worth doing, with caveats.
At 25 g/day cricket powder, Stull 2018 RCT showed a 5.7-fold Bifidobacterium animalis expansion and reduced plasma TNF-α within two weeks. Real but small functional improvement; iron and B12 contribution is meaningful for those with marginal intake.
No direct human longevity data. Indirect: sustained ruminant-meat substitution reduces lifetime CVD-burden food exposure, and chitin-bifidogenic effects map to outcomes Bifidobacterium spp. have been linked to in other RCTs. The personal-longevity case rests on substitution and surrogate endpoints, not insect-specific trials.
B12 (3–8 µg per 25 g) and iron (2–3 mg per 25 g, with high Caco-2 bioavailability per Latunde-Dada 2016) contribution can lift energy in iron- or B12-marginal readers. No direct energy RCT; trivial alertness change in the replete.