Biodiesel Feedstock From Cockroaches - A New Frontier
The common house cockroach is poised to provide legions of tons of biodiesel feedstock if grown on industrial scale. . The insect is rich with oils directly purchased by the refining industry and the insect's life force is well known. Its time to abandon the "ick" factor and move forward with real work.
Historically maligned, the common roach, the German and American species, offers great opportunity for insect feed and biodiesel feedstock. We'll talk about the oils provided by the insect today.
We'll start with pictures...
House Roaches are literally bursting with fat. You'll often see bubbles in roach dissection pictures. Doing dissections underwater emulates the the insect's abdominal cavity in that the cavity is filled with lymph fluid in the interstitial space between organs. That lymph fluid is clear but its not water, in this case and among other purposes, chemical messages are transmitted through the lymph to the fat bodies to instruct the fat body to release nutrient compounds needed by the insect. Those nutrients are stored as fat. The lymph also offers physical support to hold the organs in place. Ninety percent of the good stuff roaches have to offer comes from the abdominal cavity alone. This fat accumulation is one of the reasons roaches live so well.
These fat bodies are not connected to insect, they float in the lymph. The fat bodies wash out of dissections with squirt gun water like pressure.
Alimentary canal and nerve ganglia exposed.
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Cockroaches: Ecology, Behavior, and Natural History Front Cover William J. Bell, Louis M. Roth, Christine A. Nalepa
This book looks good but I haven't read it.
Analysis of oils from insects
The types of oils found in insects don't vary much but amounts do. Generally, insects have 50% linoleic and 50% oleic acid. These fat acids are common in nature and found in high amounts in olives.Brief non scholarly description of nutrition provided by American Cockroach
Nutritional composition [%] and energy content [kcal/100g], based on dry matter:
Protein - 65.60
Fat - 28.20
Fiber - 3.00
NFE(Carbohydrates) - 0.78
Wikipedia explains soy oil
Per 100 g, soybean oil has 16 g of saturated fat, 23 g of monounsaturated fat, and 58 g of polyunsaturated fat.[2][3] The major unsaturated fatty acids in soybean oil triglycerides are the polyunsaturates alpha-linolenic acid (C-18:3), 7-10%, and linoleic acid (C-18:2), 51%; and the monounsaturate oleic acid (C-18:1), 23%.[4] It also contains the saturated fatty acids stearic acid (C-18:0), 4%, and palmitic acid (C-16:0), 10
Soy oil is very similar to roach oil in composition. Soy is 1/3 fat, 1/3 protein and 1/3 carbohydrates. House roaches are 2/3 protein and 1/3 fat with small amounts exoskeleton chitin.
The insect of the day - Black Soldier Fly
Biodiesel and Protein from Soldier Flies Exceeds Value of Biogas from ManureIf you were unaware that insects can make biodiesel feedstock, be learned on the matter now. Feedstock has been harvested for years and it has been sold for all that time.
My argument - Roaches live better than BSF and BSF larva and thus will make protein and oil more efficiently.
BSF farming is the growing entomology area. I'm glad this area is being developed. In my opinion BSF earns its pay in pollination services. BSF can live completely in a greenhouse, bees need to travel inside and outside of the greenhouse. BSF is slightly less productive in pollination than bees but I understand with an increase of BSF presence, that is more flies, this deficiency can be addressed.Regardless, BSF larva growth and harvesting is delicate and labor intensive. BSF farming is about the larva and that larva has demands that exceed the life needs of house roaches. BSF larva live in a bed that is part feed, part filler and part toilet. That bed cannot be too moist, it must have the right pH, it has to be aerobic and not anaerobic and it can't be filled with too much ammonia waste. Roaches live in the air, there is no pH demand and roaches are fecal phagic, that is they eat their won waste. Almost all animals live in the opposite direction of their waste. Roaches don't have this aversion and readily eat their own waste.
