Impact of Cricket and Caterpillar Meal Supplementation on the Nutritional Profile and Consumer Acceptability of Cookies

The quality of cookies produced from wheat flour, cricket, and caterpillar meal blends was evaluated. This was done to examine the effect of adding edible cricket and caterpillar meals on the nutritional and sensory quality of wheat-based cookies. Edible crickets and caterpillars were purchased from local farmers in Benue state, de-gutted, washed, oven-dried, sorted, milled, and sieved to produce their respective meals. The meals were mixed in wheat flour: edible insects ratios of 95:5, 90:10, 85:15 and 80:20 for Cricket and Caterpillar meal blends, respectively. However, samples 100:0 were not mixed and contained 100% wheat flour. The samples were subjected to functional analysis of proximate composition, mineral, vitamin, amino acid profile, physical properties analysis, and sensory attributes evaluation. The result generated from the study was subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Duncan multiple range test (DMRT) was used for mean separation at the probability level of significance of 5%. While the protein, fat, ash, crude fibre, and moisture content of the cookies increased with increasing amount of edible insect meal incorporated into the formulation, the carbohydrate content of the cookies decreased significantly (p<0.05). All minerals evaluated in the study (Ca, Zn, K, P, Na, Mg, and Fe) increased with the increase in the amount of edible insect meals in the formulations. An increase in vitamin content was also observed in the cookies, but this increase was insignificant (p>0.05). There was a significant increase in all essential and non-essential amino acid content of the cookies as the level of cricket/caterpillar meal in the formulation increased. The addition of up to 20% of edible cricket/caterpillar meals to wheat flour increased all sensory attributes of the cookies. Cookies fortified with caterpillar meal were found to be more nutritious than those fortified with cricket meal. In general, samples 85:15(85% wheat flour + 15% cricket meal) and 85:15(85% wheat flour + 15% caterpillar meal) contained high nutritional content and recorded the best sensory attributes and therefore were selected as the best blends for a wheat flour+cricket meal and wheat flour+caterpillar meal blends for cookies production.