Nutrient Composition and Anti-Nutrient Factors of Six Aquatic Insects Consumed by the Bodo Community in Barpeta District, Assam

The present study evaluated the nutritive and anti-nutritive contents of six edible aquatic insect species, Lethocerus indicus (Lepeletier and Serville), Diplonychus rusticus (Fabricius), Laccotrephes ruber (Linnaeus), Cybister tripunctatus (Olivier), Hydrophilus olivaceus (Fabricius) and Sympetrum sp. (nymph) (Newman), using standard methods. The insects were collected from the freshwater bodies within the Barpeta region of Assam. The results revealed that the insects contain a good amount of crude protein (42.91 to 55.45 g/ 100 g), crude fat (8.4 to 16.28 g/ 100 g) , carbohydrates (2.76 to 9.94 g/ 100 g). The study also found that the selected insect species contain antinutrients such as tannin and oxalic acid. Their values ranged from 11.23 to 49.12 and 2.52 to 5.01 mg/ 100g respectively which were below toxic levels. Therefore, these aquatic edible insect species can serve as a promising source of nutrition and can fulfill the demand of food shortage in this region due to increasing population in the coming days.