Are the growth and survival of Acheta domesticus comparable when reared on okara, waste vegetables and premium animal feed?

Abstract

The domesticated house cricket, Acheta domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758), has been lauded as a more sustainable protein source than traditional livestock to meet the ever-increasing demand for food. There is also a potential of using waste food, such as okara (soybean residue from the manufacture of soy milk and tofu) and waste vegetables which are commonly available in many parts of Southeast Asia, to feed these insects. Food wastage can be reduced while increasing the food supply if the crickets can grow and survive well on waste food. Thus, we investigated the viability of rearing A. domesticus on oligidic diets, specifically waste vegetables and okara, to optimise the use of waste food as feed to the crickets. We monitored cricket mortality and fresh weight of 32 individually housed crickets subjected to different diet treatments, every other day for 45 days. The crickets reared on Brassica rapa (xiao bai cai; XBC) and okara mixture did not grow and survive as well as those reared on the XBC and dog food mixture, contradicting our initial prediction that okara is a suitable cricket feed, even though it has been considered one of the best oligidic diets. We also did not find any evidence that crickets reared on mixed diets of XBC and okara food grew or survived better than single diets of XBC or okara. This showed that okara cannot always replace premium animal feed to rear A. domesticus crickets.