Overview
The authors bought 31 edible insect products (whole insects, flours, flavored snacks, protein bars, pasta and chocolates) from one online platform in December 2021 and measured 17 elements by ICP-MS on a dry-weight basis. Products of Asian origin, which included scorpions and tarantulas, carried the most cadmium, arsenic, lead and mercury.
Key numbers
- Across all 31 products: cadmium mean 1 ± 1 ppm (maximum 4.534), arsenic 0.3 ± 0.4 ppm (maximum 1.769), lead 0.1 ± 0.2 ppm (maximum 0.754), mercury 0.1 ± 0.2 ppm (maximum 0.659) (Table 3).
- Cricket flour: lead 0.189 ppm (Thailand) and 0.04 ppm (Belgium); cadmium 0.04 and 0.13 ppm (Table 2, CJ5 and CJ20).
- By origin: cadmium means of 1.5 ppm (Asia), 0.10 ppm (Europe) and 0.12 ppm (America) (Table 4).
Methods (brief)
Products were oven-dried at 60 °C, milled, digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide in a microwave, and analyzed by ICP-MS with internal standards. One aliquot per product was measured three times. No reference material, recoveries or detection limits are reported.
Evidence Fitness
Direct retail data on many edible insect product types, with one product per row and a stated purchase date. Weak points: no reference-material quality control, undefined censoring limits, dry-weight values even for bars and chocolate with 5 to 14% insect content, and regional groups that mix arachnids with insects.
Related evidence
- Edible insects
- Multi-Elemental Analysis of Edible Insects, Scorpions, and Tarantulas from French (Online) Market and Human Health Risk Assessment Due to Their Consumption: A Pilot Study
- HPLC-MS/MS and ICP-MS for Evaluation of Mycotoxins and Heavy Metals in Edible Insects and Their Defatted Cakes Resulting from Supercritical Fluid Extraction
- Cadmium
- Lead