Overview
This review from Wageningen Food Safety Research updates the evidence on chemical hazards in farmed insects, focusing on transfer from rearing substrates. For heavy metals it compiles bioaccumulation factors from controlled exposure studies and concludes that lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium can accumulate, depending on the metal, the species and the substrate.
Key numbers
- Cadmium bioaccumulation factors in black soldier fly larvae of 2.5 to 20.4 across studies; 0.8 to 2.5 in yellow mealworm (Table 1).
- Lead bioaccumulation factor 5.2 to 34 in yellow mealworm, quoted from Truzzi et al. 2019 (Table 1).
- Cadmium factor of 20.4 for black soldier fly on substrate in carton versus 7 in a plastic container, quoted from another study (Section 3).
Methods (brief)
Narrative review of peer-reviewed English-language papers from CAB Abstracts, Web of Science and Scopus published after the 2018 review by Van der Fels-Klerx and colleagues, covering the twelve insect species with the most potential as food and feed in the EU.
Evidence Fitness
Context only. Every number is quoted from other studies, so nothing here is primary occurrence data; it is useful for explaining why rearing substrate controls metal levels in farmed insects.
Related evidence
- Uptake of Cadmium, Lead and Arsenic by Tenebrio molitor and Hermetia illucens from Contaminated Substrates
- Influence of Feeding Substrates on the Presence of Toxic Metals (Cd, lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), arsenic (As), Hg) in Larvae of Tenebrio molitor: Risk Assessment for Human Consumption
- Cadmium
- Lead
Update history
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