Introduction

The global demand for dietary protein is growing owing to population growth, environmental constraints, and the limitations of conventional livestock production [1, 2]. Plant-based foods for protein are mainly derived from legumes, oilseeds, and cereals, etc., and have long served as major contributors to human protein intake and aimed at improving food system sustainability [3]. Despite their shared sustainability goals, edible insects have emerged as a promising animal-derived protein source due to their high feed conversion efficiency, favorable amino acid profiles, and relatively low environmental footprint. This type of animal and plant derived protein differs substantially in terms of biological conversion pathways, nutritional composition, processing requirements, and consumer acceptance. Edible insects have emerged as a promising animal-derived protein source due to their high feed conversion efficiency, favorable amino acid profiles, and relatively low environmental footprint [4–6]. The world’s population is booming and is forecast to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. There is a need for sustainable food sources enriched with nutritive components, mainly proteins and other like carbohydrates, fats, etc. This puts additional pressure on food systems that are already under stress from resource scarcity and climate change [5]. Conventional livestock farming causes greenhouse gas emissions, water depletion, and deforestation. There is an urgent need for environmentally friendly solutions. As the world deals with the problem of population growth and resource depletion, insects are the well-known sustainable food source having amazing potential. They are the best solution for the problems associated with global food security due to their outstanding nutritional value and substantial environmental advantages. Like traditional livestock, insects not only provide food to people but also reduce the burden on the environment with ensuring a healthier and more environmentally friendly future ahead [7].

The appeal of insects as a food source begins due to their nutritional value. Edible insects contain substantial which is equivalent or more amount of protein, often 40–70% of their dry weight, than that of huge animals’ meat, such as beef, chicken, and pork [5, 8–10]. They are rich in the essential amino acids omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, along with a large range of vitamins that include B12, riboflavin, and folate, which are important for human health [5, 10, 11]. In regions of world like Africa, Asia, and Latin America, people have been eating insects for past hundreds of years, providing information for their global acceptance as a food source. In these regions, they are enjoyed as both everyday food and delicacies [10, 12, 13].

Insects are known as a powerhouse of nutrients because they contain minerals like iron, zinc, calcium, and magnesium. These small creatures, from crickets to silkworms, make a great addition to any diet, especially in particular areas where traditional protein sources are less. They are also an effective solution in regions that are fighting malnutrition [8]. Bioinformatics plays crucial role in removing obstacles in large scale insect farming by optimizing nutritional content and production efficiency through genomic and metabolic analyses.

Insect farming is a game-changer for the environment. Insects turn feed into biomass much more efficiently and need much less land, water, and feed than cows, poultry, or pigs [14, 15]. For example, crickets require six times less feed than cattle to produce the same amount of protein (FCR i.e. feed conversion ratio per kg of live weight gain). They also emit a fraction of the greenhouse gases, far less methane and nitrous oxide than ruminants, making them a climate-smart alternative [14, 16]. Insects produce valuable proteins from organic waste like food scraps and agricultural byproducts [10, 17]. This promotes environmental sustainability and reduces waste that is aligned with circular economy principles, which is not matched in the ways of traditional farming [15]. Insect farming has great potential from an economic standpoint, especially for small scale farmers in developing nations, having low cost for startup and high efficiency. It is a great source of livelihood, which increases the food security [10, 18].

By combining genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and computational modeling, bioinformatics has fundamentally transformed nutrient extraction and valorization from edible insects [19, 20]. This multidisciplinary framework promotes the sustainable production of insect-derived nutrients while improving nutritional quality and resource efficiency [21]. To develop more adaptable, accurate, and environmentally friendly extraction workflows, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning approaches are increasingly being applied to optimize processing parameters and predict extraction outcomes [22, 23]. Due to improvements and new inventions in omics technologies and bioinformatics tools, edible insects are expected to play a substantially larger role in global food systems in the near future [5, 24]. In edible insect research, genomics and pangenomics provide critical insights into genetic diversity, growth potential, stress tolerance, and disease resistance, supporting selective breeding and strain improvement [25]. Transcriptomics captures gene expression changes under different diets, rearing conditions, and developmental stages, thereby linking genotype to phenotype [26]. Proteomics enables the identification of functional proteins involved in digestion, immunity, and nutrient biosynthesis, while metabolomics profiles bioactive compounds, amino acids, fatty acids, and micronutrients that directly determine nutritional value [27]. When integrated, these multi-omics layers allow the identification of regulatory networks governing nutrient conversion efficiency and biomass accumulation [19]. Multi-omics data integration supports practical applications such as precision feed formulation, selective breeding, and optimization of mass rearing conditions for commercially important species such as H. illucens and T. molitor [20, 26]. Advanced computational frameworks, including network analysis, machine learning, and systems biology modeling, are increasingly used to integrate heterogeneous datasets and accurately predict phenotypic outcomes, thereby enhancing the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of edible insect production systems [22, 28].

This review systematically evaluates current nutrient extraction methodologies for edible insects and highlights the contribution of bioinformatics approaches in unlocking their potential as sustainable sources of nutrition, addressing issues like consumer acceptance, standardized processing, and scalable production [29, 30].

Nutritional and environmental benefits of edible insects

Insect farming has positive effect on environment because they need much less land, water, and feed than cattle, poultry, or pigs. They are also converting feed into biomass with high efficiency [14, 15]. For example, crickets need six times less feed than cattle to produce the same amount of protein. They are climate smart alternative creatures that produce fraction of the greenhouse gases, having very low amounts of methane and nitrous oxide [14, 16]. Insect diversity is vast, so it is a suitable option for food and feed. Plant based and lab grown proteins together reduce the dependence on traditional livestock and solve the problems of malnutrition, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation in the future [30]. Insects provide high content of protein, fat, vitamins like A, B12, B2, B3, B5, and minerals compared to traditional sources [5, 11, 31] (Table 1).

The nutritional value of insects varies species to species, we cannot deny their worth in nutrient profiling, which is essential for human growth [4, 32]. For example, tryptophan and lysine are abundant in proteins obtained from cricket, which is about 60–70% of their dry weight. Tryptophan and Lysine are two essential amino acids that must be obtained from the diet. Both are essential for protein synthesis, lysine is needed for growth, and tryptophan is a neurotransmitter that is a precursor to serotonin, which affects mood, appetite, and sleep [5]. Locusts and silkworms both provide similar proteins [8, 17]. Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) provide 30–50% fat, balancing both saturated and unsaturated fats, while mealworms provide 30–40% fat, which is higher in unsaturated fats like “omega-3 and omega-6” [18, 33]. Vitamins are also present in insects. Mealworms and Crickets are rich in folate, riboflavin, and B12, which support metabolism and energy [3, 34]. Grasshoppers and ants provide minerals like iron, zinc, and calcium, which improve bone health and immunity in humans [4, 35, 36].

The deal is sealed by farming efficiency. BSFL are sustainability stars due to their power of turning organic waste into protein, while Crickets thrive in controlled environments showing the adaptability of insects [37, 38]. Insects are biologically suitable as both human food and animal feed because many species efficiently convert low value organic inputs into high-protein biomass with environmental advantages compared with conventional livestock. For example, BSFL and mealworms have high protein contents and can be reared on organic by products while reducing environmental impacts relative to traditional feed sources, which makes them promising alternatives to fishmeal and soybean meal in animal diets [39, 40]. Controlled trials and reviews show that insect meals can replace substantial fractions of fishmeal or soy without reducing growth performance in aquaculture and other livestock systems, supporting their utility in animal feed [39–41]. Although insects also provide high-quality protein, essential amino acids, fats, and micronutrients for humans and emit substantially less greenhouse gas per kilogram of protein than conventional livestock, adoption in human diets faces significant barriers, including cultural resistance to entomophagy in many regions, potential allergy, food safety concerns, and costly compliance with regulatory requirements for novel foods [41, 42]. By contrast, feed sectors have been more receptive: regulatory frameworks such as in the European Union (EU) have authorized specific insect species for use in aquaculture, poultry, and pig feeds, enabling larger scale deployment and more favorable economics for feed applications than for direct human consumption at present [43, 44]. This diversity of edible insects is explained in detail in Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4, along with their nutritional value, sustainability, and farming efficiency.

Extraction techniques: unlocking insect nutrition

To utilize the full potential of edible insects, researchers need to discover fresh and innovative extraction methods. These new methods for the extraction of nutrients from insects are formed creatively or scientifically and are applicable to various insect species, as shown in Figure 1. In order to ensure quality and scalability for food, we must focus on the techniques that concentrate on isolating proteins, lipids, vitamins, and minerals from insect biomass [45].

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Figure 1. Overview of insect nutrient extraction methods.

The biomass of edible insects is completely mutilated through grinding, pressing, and sieving steps in the mechanical extraction method, instead of using chemicals. This method is helpful in maintaining the concept of environmental sustainability [46]. By using more advanced techniques like ultrasounds and microwave assisted extraction, this method is further enhanced, which help in reducing processing time and energy consumption with sufficient increase in final output [47]. For effective extraction of lipids and oils from insect’s solvent-based extraction method is used, in this method, chemicals like ethanol and hexane are used during the extraction process [38]. Use of supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) method is the greener move in this process because it uses carbon dioxide (CO₂) in extraction, helping in reducing waste as well as preserving nutrient quality for a longer time at higher pressure and temperature [34].

In enzymatic hydrolysis, proteases are used to convert proteins and lipases are used to convert fats into biologically active forms. This enzymatic hydrolysis nutrient extraction method provides high efficiency with the preservation of nutritional value of nutrients for a longer time during processing and storage [48]. Another method for the extraction of nutrients from insects, termed biological, dynamic, and ecosystem-like, is fermentation, which uses multiple microbes to alter insect biomass into digestible compounds. In some rare cases, this whole process results in the formation of new bioactive compounds like peptides [35]. The above-mentioned extraction methods have their own advantages and limitations, while there are some challenges and issues for their widespread utilization for nutrient extraction, as shown in Table 5. These are mainly expansive purification, to maintain long time nutrient functionality, optimization of conditions, pathogen reduction, and pilot scale up of heat-labile/stable nutrients, etc. In order to address these challenges and issues, there is a need of continue search and novel innovation in the field of nutrition extraction techniques from insects [46].

Globally, approximately 2 billion people consume edible insects as part of their diet, as food [31]. When the data were studied continent-wise, insect consumption is reported among nearly 90% of the population in Asia, 95% in Africa, 20% in South America, 5–8% in North America, 30–35% in Australia, and 10–15% in Europe, as shown in Figure 2 [49]. Overall, this corresponds to roughly 25–30% of the world population incorporating insects into their diet.

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Figure 2. Continent-wise percentage of insect consumption across the world as a regular diet or food source. Global distribution pattern represented by different color-coded regions. Blue: North America (5–8%); Orange: South America (20%); Yellow: Africa (95%); Green: Asia (90%); Red: Europe and Russia (10–15%); Purple: Australia (30–35%).

On the other hand, with respect to species diversity, more than 2,200 insect species have been documented as edible worldwide. The number and type of species consumed vary substantially across different regions of the world [49, 50].

Edible insects contain high amounts of proteins and healthy fats, which makes them a popular and sustainable food option [50, 51]. They contain different types of proteins such as structural proteins (actin and myosin), which help in the formation of muscles and tissues [4], storage proteins (hexamerins, ferritin, and vitellogenin) help in growth of the body and are highly nutritious [52], enzymatic proteins [proteases, amylases, lipases, glutathione S-transferase (GST) and superoxide dismutase (SOD)] which help in digestion, metabolism and antioxidant protection [53] and cuticular proteins (which are associated chitin in the exoskeleton and harder for humans to digest) [54]. Different insects offer different proteins, e.g., crickets provide muscle proteins, hexamerins, ferritin, and antioxidant enzymes, mealworms (T. molitor) provide storage proteins, vitellogenin, cuticular proteins, and digestive enzymes, while silkworm pupae provide silk proteins (fibroin and sericin) along with muscle proteins [4]. Along with protein, insects also contain a mixture of fats, including saturated fats (like palmitic and stearic acids), monounsaturated fats (such as oleic acid), and polyunsaturated fats like omega-6 linoleic acid and omega-3 α-linolenic acid [31, 53]. This composition of proteins and fats of edible insects makes them an environmentally friendly nutritional source of food, as shown in Figure 3.

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Figure 3. Nutrient profile of edible insects showing key proteins, lipids, vitamins, and minerals with their chemical structures.

Bioinformatics: revolutionizing nutrient extraction

Bioinformatics has emerged as a cornerstone of modern biotechnology, answering questions like how edible insects are studied, cultivated, and processed for human consumption. The combination of computational biology with insect farming is a major scientific advancement for fulfill of demand of environmental sustainability and nutrient enriched food at world level. Researchers are now capable of decoding the molecular mechanisms that help in nutrient synthesis and storage in insects by genomic sequencing, proteomic mapping, and metabolomic profiling. By using these steps, researchers can enhance the efficiency, extraction of nutrients like protein, lipid, vitamins, or other available micronutrients, and environmental sustainability of food production through the formation of the best design for nutrient extraction from insects [28, 55].

A unified bioinformatics workflow

A common nutrient extraction method driven by using bioinformatics may consist of several interconnected stages, as shown in Figure 4.

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Figure 4. Schematic workflow representing the process for analyzing and predicting nutrient composition in insects using bioinformatics tools. NCBI: National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Data acquisition

Retrieving the genomic and transcriptomic data of insect species from NCBI to find the nutrient biosynthesis genes [74].

Pathway reconstruction

Using KEGG to map metabolic pathways for lipids and amino acids in order to identify rate-limiting steps [55, 67].

Enzyme identification

Using the MEROPS and UniProt databases to screen for lipases, proteases, and chitinases [60, 71].

Computational modeling

Tools like TensorFlow and AutoDock are used to simulate or optimize the extraction parameters and enzyme performance [73].

Validation

Validation step involves the cross checking of findings with UniProt, STRING also includes the checking of experimental data to ensure experimental validation approaches in edible insect nutrient extraction method [53, 61].

Due to improvements and new inventions in omics technologies and bioinformatic tools, edible insects are predicted to play a much larger or more important role in global food systems in the near future. Using molecular level data for practical production will not only improve the food quality but also help in addressing the important problems associated with sustainability and nutrition security. So, it’s not wrong to say that bioinformatics stands right at the forefront of this new nutrient extraction from insects, combining science, technology, and sustainable innovation for improvement.

Safety and legal regulation for edible insects as food

Edible insects are being viewed as an alternative source of protein that is both sustainable and environmentally advantageous due to their high levels of nutrients. When it comes to the entry of edible insects into Western markets, there are many regulations and safety assessments that must be followed. The food safety and legal regulations associated with edible insects are changing dramatically at this time, especially in the EU region, where edible insects must be treated as a new food and therefore go through structured authorization processes before they can be marketed [5, 76, 77].

Applications and challenges: from food to innovation

In the future, edible insects will be an essential source of food, feed, and industrial applications, as shown in Figure 5. A. domesticus (crickets) and T. molitor (mealworms) offer high protein alternatives for human diets, while H. illucens (BSFL) offers sustainable animal feed, lowering dependency on soy or fishmeal [82–84]. Anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties are provided by nutraceuticals made from insects driven chitin and peptides [85]. By converting waste into protein, BSFL promotes circular economies and lowers methane emissions from landfills [86]. Chitin produced from insects is used to make bioplastics, which reduces plastic packaging waste by up to 30% [87].

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Figure 5. Applications of insects represent their uses in food, health, industry, and sustainability.

There are some technical, cultural, and regulatory challenges in the scaling of the insect production process [18]. According to Sun-Waterhouse et al. (2016) [48] and Dossey et al. (2016) [74], extraction techniques like enzymatic hydrolysis are expensive but there is need of automation and environmentally friendly solutions to become commercially viable. In 1963 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) jointly created standardized processes for food production, which are absent in the extraction procedure of nutrients from insects, which leads to inconsistent quality [18, 31]. Cultural barriers and rituals kept consumers’ acceptance very low, but some recent sensory studies and well-known products like protein bars made from crickets have shown some promise in their acceptance at world level [33, 88, 89]. As for a demonstration of bioinformatics-driven extraction, we consider a case study on T. molitor [90]. Using genomic data from NCBI [74], proteases were identified [91] and optimized using TensorFlow [92], resulting in increased protein extraction efficiency over traditional methods [48, 93]. High computational cost, technical hands-on requirement, and regulatory gaps in this whole extraction process limit the scalability [33]. For ensuring food safety and market integration of insects extracted products, the regulatory framework prepared from FAO guidelines [31] is necessary for their global acceptance [18]. Conducting surveys among consumers (e.g., a survey conducted in Western markets shows that 60% consumers are open to insect-based products in the market), sensory the market needs and discovering novel insect products (e.g., insect-based snacks, protein bars, etc.) are further necessary for their acceptance [88, 89]. Table 6 provides a comparison between currently available bioinformatics applications and those that are yet to be developed or are still being developed. This table illustrates how bioinformatics has progressed from traditional approaches (e.g., those based around the analysis of specific data types such as genomics or proteomics using either statistical or alignment-based techniques) to more integrated and advanced approaches (e.g., integration across multiple levels of omics data, the use of AI and real-time processing of data) as well as differences in the computational infrastructure upon which these applications run, the clinical applications of the developed applications and the obstacles or barriers associated with using them. As a result of this comparison, it is easier for the reader to appreciate how the field of bioinformatics is evolving and what direction it is headed towards in the future.

Efficiency and nutrient value of nutrients could further increase by advancement in techniques like genetic engineering, automation, and green technology (e.g., CRISPR-modified H. illucens). Experimental trials shown 10% increase in protein content of BSFL due to CRISPR (a gene-editing technology that allows scientists to precisely modify DNA by using a system based on naturally occurring genome editing systems in bacteria). Industry partnership can standardize the whole process and their waste to protein models can enhance the environmental sustainability [74, 94, 95]. Consumers focused strategies like their interests, sensory research, and innovative products like the introduction of insect formed pasta are essential for market growth in other regions of the world where these insect-based products are not relevant [33, 88, 89].

Conclusions

Edible insects processed using bioinformatics represent a nutritious and sustainable alternative to traditional livestock while helping to address global food security challenges. Their low environmental footprint, together with high protein (30–70%) and micronutrient content, makes them well suited to sustainable food systems. Advances in genomic and metabolomic analyses have enabled bioinformatics approaches to enhance nutritional quality and improve farming efficiency. However, challenges such as consumer acceptance and scalability still remain. This review outlines a roadmap for integrating edible insects into global food systems through bioinformatics, supporting the development of a resilient and environmentally friendly future. Despite their considerable potential, several limitations must still be overcome. Large scale adoption is constrained by high computational costs, a lack of regulatory standardization, ethical concerns surrounding genome editing, and low consumer acceptance. Future research should focus on pangenomic mapping to capture intraspecies genetic diversity and to ensure genetic stability, robustness, and disease resistance in mass-rearing systems. In parallel, the development of AI-driven bioreactors, including digital twin frameworks, will be crucial for real-time monitoring, automation, and accurate prediction of nutritional outputs. Furthermore, ethical gene-drive modeling should be advanced to rigorously evaluate the ecological risks and long-term environmental impacts of CRISPR-modified species, such as H. illucens. Addressing these challenges will require scalable bioinformatics pipelines, internationally harmonized regulatory frameworks, and long-term assessments of environmental impacts. Collectively, these efforts are essential for establishing edible insects as a safe, efficient, and resilient component of future global food systems.