Background: Maintaining a healthy lifestyle especially the protection from chronic diseases such as hypertension (BP), cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and obesity through the use of animal products, insects, plant foods; mainly fruits, vegetables and herbs is growing among scientists and health care givers. In the past few years, there has been a new upsurge of interest in the use of insects as food. This research study was conducted to characterize the physical properties and fatty acid profile of the oil extracted from the larvae of Rhynchophorus phoenicis, sold at Oba, Anambra State, South‐East, Nigeria.

Method: The oil was extracted from the larva using n-hexane and ethyl alcohol. The physical constants were determined using various standard titration methods. The fatty acid profile was determined by the technique of gas chromatography.

Result: The results of the study indicated values of 18.11 ± 0.39mg/g, 1.8 ± 0.26mgKOH/g, 0.9 ± 0.13%, 41.43 ± 0.63MeqKOH/g and 327.60 ± 9.1mgKOH/g for iodine, acid, free fatty acid, peroxide and saponification values. Fatty acid analysis showed the presence of unsaturated fatty acids at low level (4.73% of total lipid). Myristate, palmitic acid and palmitoleic acid constituted 57.18, 15.15 and 12.03% of the oil. The study has shown that R. phoenicis has high percentage of saturated fatty acid. The larva oil is relatively liquid at room temperature, which makes it unique as this is unusual for animal oil. This may be due to the presence of unsaturated fatty acid, linoleic acid (C18:2) among the saturated forms. Reducing the intake or cutting out unhealthy snacks and replacing them with the healthy ones can have a positive effect on people’s health. Since increased intake of saturated fat and salt are linked to cardiovascular disease, the change from unhealthy to healthy snacks is very beneficial. However, snacking contributes to excessive levels of fat in the body.

Conclusion: The larvae should be taken with fruits, whole grains and vegetables. Hence, it is important to take into consideration the sources of fatty acid and the global dietary patterns when judging the beneficial or deleterious effect of these fatty acids on people’s health and disease.

physicochemical properties, larva, oil, vegetables, whole grains, fruits, fatty acid profile.

Received: November 26, 2022; Accepted: January 24, 2023; Published: March 24, 2023

How to cite this article: Linda N. Adobeze and Victor H. A. Enemor, Characterization and the fatty acid profile analysis of the oil extracted from Rhynchophorus phoenicis larva; health implications of its consumption, International Journal of Nutrition and Dietetics 9 (2023), 17-28. http://dx.doi.org/10.17654/2347527723002

This Open Access Article is Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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