How Do Cockroaches Make Milk?

In South Africa, one company is using insect milk to make gourmet ice cream. But it’s not yet a mainstream product. Thousands of cockroaches would need to be harvested just to produce one gram of milk. In the future, cockroach milk might be a viable substitute for cow’s milk. But for now, it’s not safe to consume.

To obtain cockroach milk, a female Pacific Beetle cockroach must be sliced open, and its brood sack opened. The contents of the sack are very small, and it will take a lot of roaches to make enough milk to make a drinkable quantity. But the milk is considered nutritious, and some people have even dreamed of commercializing cockroach milk.

Milk proteins are easily extracted from cockroach crystals, which are stable in water. The protein content of crystals is calculated using the total number of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in each crystal. However, the crystals are difficult to count. In the long run, cockroach milk could be a useful ingredient in drug development.

Scientists have confirmed that cockroaches produce a milk-like substance in their midgut, which contains protein, essential amino acids, fat, and carbohydrates. It is also high in energy, making it a potential candidate for human consumption.