Abstract

The objective of this study was to develop and encapsulate house fly larvae meal (FLM) by ionic gelation to obtain a novel nutritive food ingredient with improved aroma and appearance. Calcium-alginate beads were prepared by ionic gelation with different concentrations of FLM (0, 0.5, 1, 2, 4 and 8% w/v). FLM-beads presented spheroidal shape with sizes ranged 1700–2250 μm. Ionic gelation technique demonstrated be a good strategy to entrap FLM as observed by electronic microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry studies. The inclusion of FLM in calcium-alginate beads allows to conserve a high content of protein (24% with high content of essential amino acids), lipids (13% with a 68% of unsaturated fatty acids) and high antioxidant capacity (1235–6903 μmol TE/100 g). In addition, the use of alginate as encapsulating material improves aroma of FLM-beads, reducing unpleasant volatiles (only 4 of the 14 volatiles present in FLM were found in the FLM-beads). Finally, microbiological assays indicate that FLM-beads could be considered as ready-to-eat food ingredients. Based on these results, FLM-beads could become a potential food ingredient with high nutritional quality. In addition, the encapsulation of FLM allowed to improve aroma and appearance of FLM, which would be better accepted by the population.