Impact of the Addition of Tenebrio molitor and Hermetia illucens on the Physicochemical and Sensory Quality of Cooked Meat Products

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The growing need for protein cannot be covered in the future by traditional farming of cattle or pigs, especially considering its problematic impact on climatic greenhouse gas emissions. One alternative protein source is insects, which have less-negative impacts on these emissions. However, in many (European) countries, the consumption of insects is less accepted by consumers. An alternative might be the use of insects in meat products, which are popular among consumers. The problem is that consumers have expectations about these products that should be met when insects are added to the meat products. Therefore, in this study, we produced a cooked meat product and replaced 10% and 20% of the meat with whole insect larvae powder from yellow mealworms and black soldier flies. This replacement negatively influenced the liquid losses during cooking, the color and protein results, and after storage in modified atmosphere packages, the color, sensory and hardness results of the meat products, especially after replacing 20% of the meat with insects and after adding black soldier fly larvae. The growth of bacteria added to the surface of the products during storage was not altered by the insect replacement. ABSTRACT: The use of proteins from insects, plants, microalgae, fungi or bacteria as an alternative to proteins of animal origin such as meat, fish, eggs or milk can meet the worldwide protein demand in the future. As the consumption of whole insects might be problematic or unacceptable for many consumers, especially in European countries, the use of homogenized insects or protein extracts from insects for the production of products might be a possibility to overcome general acceptability problems. However, the quality criteria of these products have to be comparable with consumers’ expectations with regard to known products. Therefore, in the present study, we produced a meat product, replaced 10% and 20% of the pork with homogenized larvae of Tenebrio molitor and Hermetia illucens, and determined different physicochemical and sensory parameters at production and during modified atmosphere storage for 21 days. Additionally, the alteration of different bacteria species during this storage was analyzed in challenge tests. After production, the addition of insects resulted in higher cooking losses and pH values in the products with 20% insects, higher pH and yellowness, lower lightness, protein and hardness results in the Hermetia products, as well as higher yellowness and lower protein and hardness values in the cooked meat products with Tenebrio molitor. During modified atmosphere storage, the color differences principally remained, whereas the concentrations of inoculated Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli were not influenced by the addition of insects to the cooked meat products. The sensory results of the insect products, especially at higher concentrations and with Hermetia illucens, worsened during modified atmosphere storage. The addition of homogenized insect larvae, especially at higher concentrations and particularly of Hermetia illucens, influences different physicochemical and sensory parameters of the cooked meat products.