After all, cockroach gut extracts probably won’t be easily marketable, although baby cow growth formula somehow is.
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The team, which was led by the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in India, has even pronounced it as the key to feeding the world’s growing population.
While to many people the idea of an insect producing milk is weird, it actually fascinated researchers.
Clearly milking a cockroach isnt the most feasible option, so an global team of scientists headed by researchers from the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in India made a decision to sequence the genes responsible for producing the milk protein crystals to see if they could somehow replicate them in the lab.
Hang on a second, cockroaches produce milk?
Researcher Sanchari Banerjee likened the crystals to “a complete food” in terms of nutrition.
According to a group of scientists based in India, cockroach milk is four times as nutritious as cow’s milk and has a unique form of protein contained in it.
The milk has incredible properties – a single crystal has three times the energy of an equal amount of buffalo milk.
It all began a decade ago when a young researcher at the University of Iowa noticed shiny little crystals spilling out of a roach’s gut, prompting an worldwide team of scientists to probe further.
It shall however, be noted that this option is not meant for those looking to lose weight and also not for those following western diets, as they are already eating too many calories per day. This method would act as a quick and easy way to get calories and nutrients.
The bug’s common name is the Pacific beetle cockroach, and it’s the only one known to bear live young.
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Now, armed with the gene sequences for these milk proteins, Ramaswamy and colleagues plan to use a yeast system to produce these crystals en masse. “They can be a fantastic protein supplement”, added Subramanian Ramaswamy, PhD, the leader of the project. The crystal releases protein at a rate equivalent to the rate at which the protein is used up when being digested.
