Cockroach (Periplaneta americana): Nutritional Value as Food and Feed For Man and Livestock

Aim: To ascertain scientifically by proximate analysis, the nutrient composition and mineral contents of the American cockroach Periplaneta americana.

Study Design: Completely randomized sample design (CRD) was engaged in the study with 15 parameters replicated five (5) times, totaling seventy five experimental samples. The whole experiments were repeated in three trials.

Place and Duration of Study: Postgraduate laboratory, Faculty of Science, Niger Delta University Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria between September 2019 and February 2020.

Methodology: The nutrient composition and mineral profile of the cockroaches were ascertained using randomly selected cockroach sample while adopting standard procedures of AOAC, (1990, 2005).Statistical analysis and significant difference tested at alpha level p≤ 0.05 was done using Turkey HSD test for difference between mean while results were presented in tables. The software used was SPSS version 20.

Results: The results for proximate analysis of nutrients found in P. americana are given as follows: moisture content: 12.42±1.6%, Crude ash: 3.52±0.8%, crude protein: 8.72±1.3%, crude fat: 17.64±1.9%, fibre: 21.28±2.1%, Carbohydrate (dry method): 87.56±4.2% and Carbohydrate (free nitrogen extract): 48.76±3.1%. Furthermore, P. americana was proven rich in both micro and macro minerals in very high to low concentrations such as:calcium (468.00±9.7mg/100g), magnesium (362.00±8.5mg/100g), iron (274.60±7.4mg/100g), potassium (242.5±7.0 mg/100g), phosphorus (128.76±5.1mg/100g), sodium (110.68±4.7mg/100g), manganese (12.63±1.6mg/ 100g), copper (7.54±1.2mg/100g) and zinc (4.74±1.0mg/100g). All results were calculated as mean percentages of five experimental evaluations.

Conclusion: Cockroaches are omnivores and feed on rotten vegetables, waste products from industries such as brewer’s yeast, leftover bread, brewer’s spent grains and several other food materials, hence they are very well efficient at turning plant based feed into animal protein. This makes them efficient projectors for addressing the problem of shortage of animal proteins thereby fulfilling the food security goal of sustainable development.