Scientists Use Mealworms To Make A Seasoning That Tastes Like Meat
According to recent news, scientists use mealworms to make a seasoning that tastes like meat. It has been discovered that eating insects is a more environmentally friendly option than eating other types of animal proteins. On the other hand, many people find them repulsive.
Author:Suleman ShahReviewer:Han JuAug 26, 20224 Shares303 Views
It has been discovered that eating insects is a more environmentally friendly option than eating other types of animal proteins.
On the other hand, many people find them repulsive.
A little bit of sugar on top of fried mealworms might make them easier to digest, which would be beneficial for the environment.
At the American Chemical Society's fall meeting in Chicago on August 24, researchers talked about what they had found.
They found that adding sugar to powdered, cooked mealworms produced a seasoning with an enticing "meat-like" odor.
It has been discovered that eating some insects can be a more environmentally-friendly alternative than eating other types of animal proteins due to the fact that certain insects require less land and water to raise.
However, the concept of chewing on insects is often not appealing to many individuals in Western countries, such as the United States and other Western countries, where eating insects is not a common practice.
“There aren’t a lot of people ready to fry up a whole skillet of crickets and eat them fresh,” says Julie Lesnik, a biological anthropologist at Wayne State University in Detroit who wasn’t involved in the new research.
Finding a way to make foods made from insects more attractive is potentially an important step toward bringing them into the mainstream.
Additionally, the success of a single insect-based product could have a domino effect on the development of other kinds of food.
“It’s really great that this research is happening, because at any point this might be the thing that people figure out and then it explodes,” says Brenden Campbell, an insect agriculturist based in Eugene, Ore.
He has conducted research on mealworms and established a company called Planet Bugs, which is partly dedicated to the production of food items made from insects.
In an earlier study, chemist In Hee Cho of Wonkwang University in South Korea and colleagues investigated the scents given off by mealworms that had been steamed, roasted, or deep-fried.
They found that the steamed mealworms had the least pungent odor of the three preparation methods.
Mealworms that had been steamed emitted chemicals that smelled sweet, like maize, but mealworms that had been roasted or fried released chemicals that smelled more like meat and seafood.
In their most recent work, the team tried to figure out what combinations of water, sugars, and cooking time made the food smell like meat.
Then, they put these different combinations through a series of tests with volunteers to find out which combination made the most appealing smell.
According to Amy Wright, who has authored a book on the topic of eating bugs, using insects ground up or in seasonings could help people get past their hesitations about eating bugs.
This is something that Cho's team tried to do. She, on the other hand, has no concerns about it.
Wright, a professor of literature at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, used to keep mealworms in her apartment and eat them in guacamole and sandwiches.
Conclusion
“There are plenty of things that are disgusting to us, but we have engineered around them,” Lesnik says.
“We’re just seeing insects being treated like any other food, and yeah, we’re talking about aroma, but that’s what the engineers of Doritos are doing.”
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Suleman Shah
Author
Suleman Shah is a researcher and freelance writer. As a researcher, he has worked with MNS University of Agriculture, Multan (Pakistan) and Texas A & M University (USA). He regularly writes science articles and blogs for science news website immersse.com and open access publishers OA Publishing London and Scientific Times. He loves to keep himself updated on scientific developments and convert these developments into everyday language to update the readers about the developments in the scientific era. His primary research focus is Plant sciences, and he contributed to this field by publishing his research in scientific journals and presenting his work at many Conferences.
Shah graduated from the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (Pakistan) and started his professional carrier with Jaffer Agro Services and later with the Agriculture Department of the Government of Pakistan. His research interest compelled and attracted him to proceed with his carrier in Plant sciences research. So, he started his Ph.D. in Soil Science at MNS University of Agriculture Multan (Pakistan). Later, he started working as a visiting scholar with Texas A&M University (USA).
Shah’s experience with big Open Excess publishers like Springers, Frontiers, MDPI, etc., testified to his belief in Open Access as a barrier-removing mechanism between researchers and the readers of their research. Shah believes that Open Access is revolutionizing the publication process and benefitting research in all fields.
Han Ju
Reviewer
Hello! I'm Han Ju, the heart behind World Wide Journals. My life is a unique tapestry woven from the threads of news, spirituality, and science, enriched by melodies from my guitar. Raised amidst tales of the ancient and the arcane, I developed a keen eye for the stories that truly matter. Through my work, I seek to bridge the seen with the unseen, marrying the rigor of science with the depth of spirituality.
Each article at World Wide Journals is a piece of this ongoing quest, blending analysis with personal reflection. Whether exploring quantum frontiers or strumming chords under the stars, my aim is to inspire and provoke thought, inviting you into a world where every discovery is a note in the grand symphony of existence.
Welcome aboard this journey of insight and exploration, where curiosity leads and music guides.
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