Are cockroaches a usable source of protein?
Bear with me, this is an entirely serious if not necessarily particularly practical question :)
In The Damage Done, perhaps the best known notionally non-fiction Thai prison story (and, apparently, soon to be a movie), there are a lot of disgusting, gruesome and/or on occasion quite implausible stories, like elephants playing soccer using balls with prisoners inside.
One of these stories involves our hapless protagonist being thrown into "the hole" (isolation) for months, with only water and spoiled rice to eat. According to the book, he survived because he was taught by Thai prisoners sharing the same fate to trap the plentiful cockroaches, feed the rice to them and then eat the cockroaches (yum yum!), which apparently also served as a source of protein. Would this actually work? More specifically, can cockroaches (or insects in general) convert a simple starch into protein, and would you get sick eating them?
Best Answer
Cockroaches are generally edible. Indeed, the ediblebugshop.com sells roasted cockroaches. [I have no affiliation with the website] They state:
These plain roasted cockroaches make a great snack to munch on or can be added to your favourite dish. See our recipes page for more ways to use your roasted cockroaches. Completely safe to eat and actually taste great, they are sometimes called Land Lobsters!
Another example: The Eat-A-Bug Cookbook has a recipe for Cockroach a la King. (Chapter 6, Pantry Pests)
If I were a prisoner in the hole, and if it was a roach that grew up in a clean cage with controlled feedings from me, I would eat it.
If it were a free range (so to speak) coackroach that just wandered into my cell, I wouldn't eat it uncooked. You don't know where that roach has been, what was crawled through, or what he/she has been eating. In that case, I would want to safety of cooking with heat. That may not be available in the hole.
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Quick Answer about "Are cockroaches a usable source of protein?"
No, an insect cannot convert a simple starch into protein without other food.Are cockroaches a good source of protein?
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More answers regarding are cockroaches a usable source of protein?
Answer 2
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/31/travel/china-cockroach-farming-food/
They should not be much different than crickets which are commonly consumed. An insect which does not inherently produce a toxin should often be fairly safe depending on what they had been eating. A sewer roach for instance would not be a good idea while a wood roach would likely be safe in a pinch. I recall reality shows which would routinely make contestants eat giant hissing roaches something that might not be pleasant but which would not hurt the contestants.
Answer 3
can cockroaches (or insects in general) convert a simple starch into protein
No, an insect cannot convert a simple starch into protein without other food. Starch (C6H10O5)n does not contain the nitrogen necessary for amino acids, which compose proteins.
But the insect does not have to convert starch into protein. Presumably this cell is not a closed system; cockroaches can eat other things outside the cell then walk into the cell.
Answer 4
Entomophagy (eating of insects) is a well established culinary tradition in some cultures.
At time of answering, the relevant wikipedia article both claimed that the protein quality was comparable to soy, and showed photographs of insects/preparations commercially sold to voluntary buyers as a foodstuff in Thailand and Mexico.
Answer 5
From this page on one of my websites, here is a light hearted poke at eating insects:
Anyone in the mood for fried caterpillars? Roasted silkworms? Braised crickets? You might be blanching, but according to a group of Oxford researchers, certain bugs are more nutritious than our favorite meat staples.
In a recent study from the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers compared the nutritional profile of six commercially available insects – crickets, honey bees, silkworms, mealworms, mopane caterpillars and palm weevil larvae – to chicken, beef and pork using two different scoring systems that tracked variables like protein, fat, sodium, vitamins and minerals.
The result? When the two scoring systems were taken together, “every single insect the researchers examined came out on top,” reports Medical Daily. The researchers note that crickets, mealworms and palm weevil larvae were “significantly healthier.”
In other words, instead of slaving over Cricket à la King for dinner, try folding a little protein-rich cricket flour into your next batch of bread or cupcakes.
Answer 6
Insect are a high protean food. But lack fat. Thailand they are ate. Locus also. Sun dried & salted or fried. Being a Islander. I will go more for the scorpion myself.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Pixabay, Brett Sayles, Kelly L, Erik Mclean