导读:芬兰科学家从蟋蟀中提取出了很多食品调料，不但味道好、而且富含优质蛋白质，吃昆虫会成为西方国家的一股潮流吗？
Technical Research Center of Finland, VTT has developed food ingredients from mealworms and crickets, which are expected to be used in food processing in the future.
芬兰技术研究中心VTT已经从黄粉虫和蟋蟀提出出了食品调料，今后将用于食品加工。
The raw materials based in insects can be used to produce meatballs and falafel, said VTT in a press release issued on Thursday.
VTT在本周四发表的一份新闻稿中表示说，这些从昆虫中提取出的调料可以用于生产肉丸和沙拉三明治。
Researchers at VTT have developed a dry fractionation method, which can easily produce insect fractions with different flavors and degrees of coarseness, it said.
报告称，VTT研究人员开发出了一种干馏的方法，可以简单地干馏出不同口味、不同粗糙程度的昆虫成分。
Fat is removed from the insects before the fractionation, so the insect fractions contain up to 80 percent of crude protein. The insect fractions are suitable ingredients for various solid foods.
干馏之前会先将昆虫体内的脂肪去除，因此昆虫干馏后粗蛋白含量高达80%。干馏之后的产物可以当作多种固体食品的调料。
VTT said it has tested the fractions as raw materials to make meatballs and falafel balls by replacing 5 percent to 18 percent of ingredients.
VTT表示说他们已经对用这种原材料生产的肉丸和沙拉球进行了测试，其中有5%到18%的调料是从昆虫中提取出来的。
As a result, a small addition of the insect fractions into falafel ingredients tripled the protein content of falafel balls, as insects are rich in high-quality protein, explained VTT.
据VTT表示，从结果来看，在沙拉配料里添加少量这种昆虫提取物可以把沙拉球的蛋白质含量增加到原来三倍，因为昆虫富含优质蛋白。
Insect eating is common to many cultures in the world.
吃昆虫对于全世界许多文化来说都非常普遍。
In November 2015, the European Union agreed on a new regulation on novel foods. The regulation, which will come into force at the beginning of 2018, brings whole insects and their parts explicitly under its scope.
2015年11月，欧盟同意对新食品进行一项新监管。这份新条例将从2018年开始生效，明确地涵盖了所有的昆虫和它们的身体部分。
Therefore, the introduction of insect eating in Western countries will require the development of insect processing into ready-to-use raw materials for foodstuffs, said VTT.
因此据VTT表示，将吃昆虫的习惯介绍到西方国家将需要把昆虫加工成食品半成品技术的发展。
