Russian scientists want to add locust shells to sausage. What for?

What do you think is added to sausage onfactories about the production of this product? In fact, a lot of things: from different types of meat (if we are talking about high-quality sausage) to acidity regulators, flavor enhancers, and so on. Someone may recall the common and “very funny” myth about toilet paper, but even this will not seem as scary to you as the proposal of scientists from ITMO University (University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics). They want to add a substance derived from locust shells. But what's the point?

Why add locust shells to food?

Strictly speaking, they are not going to addshells, and the substance that is contained in their composition. Namely chitin. It is he who gives shellings strength and lightness at the same time. At the same time, the use of chitin technology is not new. Chitin and its applications in the food industry in Russia have been studying for at least 150 years.

See also: The chicken will be created from peas.

According to scientists, adding chitin to foodwill make products more healthy and safe. As stated in an interview with kp.ru, Alexander Ishevsky, a professor at the Department of Food Biotechnology and Engineering at ITMO University,

Our scientists at one time had the idea of ​​using locusts as a source of protein, as is done, for example, in African countries, where it is simply dried, pounded into flour and then added to food.

What is the use of chitin?

Today, chitin is obtained from shellscrabs and shrimp and you, most likely, have already eaten it more than once. You just did not know about it. Chitin in the form of its derivative called chitosan is actively used in the manufacture of medicines, cosmetics, as well as certain types of meat (and not only) products. The advantage of chitosan is that it (like chitin) contains many beneficial trace elements. In this case, chitosan can be absorbed by our body, but chitin cannot boast with this.

On the one hand, this is bad, because chitin, fromwhich is the shell, the human body is simply not absorbed. On the other hand, the harder and thicker it is, the more vitamins and trace elements it contains. Therefore, chitin must be recycled. But this process has a number of drawbacks, - Alexander Ishevsky notes. - First, during the "processing" chitin loses a large proportion of nutrients. Secondly, its getting quite expensive.

Locust sausage

The solution could be a new ITMO development. University specialists are trying to make chitin not lose its beneficial properties, but at the same time assimilated by man. Scaffolds locust scientists propose to use in order to reduce the cost of the production process. After all, the breeding of these insects is much cheaper than the maintenance of farms for shrimp and crabs.

I think in the first place such an additive canIt would be used in the production of social products. - Alexander continues. How do, for example, boiled sausage? And it is very simple - they let chicken or turkey veins and bones with small leftovers under the press. It turns out this kind of pasta. And up to 25% of this paste is bone fat, which provokes the appearance of cholesterol plaques. Chitin bones bone fat and then removes it from the body without any problems. And not only bone, by the way, but in principle, any fat - no wonder that the same chitosan is used as a means for losing weight.

Now scientists are at the very initial stage.tests, but there is no reason to doubt that they can wait for success. Moreover, the experience of our Western colleagues suggests that insects can be used in the food industry. For example, in Finland they already successfully sell bread made from grasshoppers. You can read about it in our material, which was published in Yandex.Dzen. In order not to miss such unique materials, we recommend to subscribe to our page in this service.