Cow's milk has long been known as a healthy drink. Even babies who since childhood are accustomed to drink cow's milk in powder form then mixed with hot water. In addition to cow's milk there is also goat's milk, milk made from soybeans, cashews and even milk made from rice.
But now scientist also introduce milk cockroaches. But according to scientists cockroaches milk, is the most nutritious food ingredient in the world, with protein content three or four times greater than cow's milk.
New discovery, the cockroaches that live in the islands of Hawaii and other islands in the Pacific Ocean, which is called diploptera punctata. Unlike the usual cockroach, diploptera punctata not lay eggs but give birth to a child as other mammals.
This diploptera punctata gives birth to about twelve children every two to three weeks, which it gives food in the form of a yellow liquid produced by its uterus.
"But inside of the cockroaches intestine, the yellow liquid turns into digestible crystals for a long time until they can find their own food," says Professor Barbara Stay of Iowa University as quoted by NDTV.
A team of researchers led by chemist Subramanian Ramaswamy in Bangalore, India, has studied the composition of crystals found in the cockroach's stomach.
"We found that this cockroach milk is three times higher in calorie value than buffalo milk, which is considered by far the highest protein and calorie," Ramaswamy said.
Because it is very difficult to collect the cockroach milk in large quantities, Ramaswamy and his team are working to produce the cockroach milk by using a fabricated yeast and have an exactly same composition as cockroach milk. Because this process can produce a large amount of cockroach milk, one-day people will be able to buy it in food stores.
2004 published a scientific paper entitled "Evolution of a novel function: nutritive milk in the viviparous cockroach, Diploptera punctata" in the journal Evolution and Development (Q1) the greatness of this cockroach milk has been echoed.
Basically a cockroach consists of approximately 3,500 species. Five species of cockroaches commonly found in the home are Periplaneta americana, Blattela germanica, Blattaorientalis, Supella langipalpa, and Diploptera punctata. Diploptera punctata cockroach species reproduce by giving birth so that it has a crystalline solid containing milk protein to breastfeed it's child.
The animal has no nipple, cockroach milk cannot be milked like cow's milk, but processed into a kind of yeast. Diploptera punctata cockroaches can be easily found in Australia, Myanmar, China, Fiji, Hawaii and India.
Research continues, high nutritional content in cockroach milk is also confirmed by the team of scientists Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine India (inStem). In a scientific paper entitled "Structure of a heterogeneous, glycosylated, lipid-bound, in vivo-grown protein crystal at atomic resolution from the viviparous cockroach Diploptera punctata", inStem analyzes and predicts that the cockroach diploptera punctata milk is suitable for becoming a superfood in the future
Superfood is a type of food that contains complete nutrition and is very good to consumption. This is because of diploptera punctata milk containing protein-dense crystals. The crystals contained in cockroach milk are fat, sugar, amino acids/protein and other nutrients which four times more than cow milk nutrition.
Not only a source of calories and nutrients, this crystal are also time released, means when proteins are digested, crystals release more protein. According to Ramaswamy, it is very recommended to do more research and a series of trials to determine whether cockroach milk is safe for humans consumption in the long term.
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