Cockroach milk four times as nutritious as cow milk – Scientists

By BOLUWATIFE EZEKIEL OLALEYE

Some scientists have made a stunning discovery leading to the propagation that “not only is cockroach milk fast becoming a part of our food chain and diet, it’s even referred to as the super food of the future.”

National Daily gathered that an international team of scientists from the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) in Bangalore, India, recently discovered the structure of milk protein crystal from the guts of a cockroach species, leading to their conclusion that “It’s more than four times as nutritious as cow’s milk and it could be the key to feeding their growing population in the future.”

Leonard Chavas, one of the scientists behind the research and his colleagues examined the species, also known as Diploptera punctata, which is the only specie of cockroach known to be viviparous, able to bring forth live babies that have developed within the mother’s body, instead of the mother laying eggs to develop outside her body.
This species of roach nourishes its growing embryos with a protein-rich liquid secreted by its brood sac. After the embryo ingests the liquid, protein crystals develop within its midgut.

“The crystals are like a complete food — they have proteins, fats and sugars,”
Sanchari Banerjee, one of the main authors of the study said, “If you look into the protein sequences, they have all the essential amino acids.”
So, the question is “how does one even milk a cockroach?” the scientists explained that the crystals are currently extracted from the midgut of cockroach embryos and they are moving to the next stage of research.

“For now, we are trying to understand how to control this phenomenon in a much easier way, to bring it to mass production,” Chavas said.

Chavas who tasted the cockroach milk once said “No particular taste,” though the idea of ice cream appeals to him. He had imagined “a flavour with honey and crispy pieces.”
Although the thought of drinking cockroach milk, the bugging pest that gets a lot of Nigerian girls screaming all over the place, is a bit worrisome.

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It is being recommended, therefore, “If you’re really looking to increase your protein content, then, cockroach milk might just be the best drink to consider.”

It was highlighted that Although most cockroaches don’t actually produce milk, Diploptera punctate, which is the only known cockroach to give birth to live young, has been shown to pump out a type of ‘milk’ containing protein crystals to feed its babies.

It has been noted that the fact that an insect produces milk is pretty fascinating, but that what fascinated researchers is the fact that a single one of these protein crystals contains more than three times the amount of energy found in an equivalent amount of buffalo milk (which is also higher in calories then dairy milk).

It was indicated that milking a cockroach isn’t the most feasible option, so, an international team of scientists headed by researchers from the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in India decided to sequence the genes responsible for producing the milk protein crystals to see if they could somehow replicate them in the lab.