# Environmental Evaluation of Yellow Mealworm Larvae Products: Analysis of Modeling Choices and Nutritional Impact-Adjusted Comparison

## TL;DR

This study evaluates the environmental impact of yellow mealworm larvae and a derived food product, comparing different modeling approaches and nutritional impacts.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a comparative analysis of attributional and consequential LCA methods for insect-based food systems, adjusted for nutritional value.

## Key findings

- Insect feed production is a major environmental bottleneck in larval systems.
- Consequential LCA showed slightly higher impacts for mealworm production compared to attributional LCA.
- Nutritionally adjusted environmental impacts of mealworms are lower than conventional animal products.

## Abstract

The transition of eating habits to meet safe nutritional
recommendations,
coupled with the strong environmental interactions of current animal
production systems, boosts the development of this research. This
study conducts the life cycle assessment (LCA) and nutritional LCA
(n-LCA) of Tenebrio molitor larvae
and a derived food product (lasagna). Both attributional with economic
allocation (aLCA) and consequential (cLCA) modeling approaches were
employed as baseline scenarios to address the multifunctionality,
complemented by a sensitivity analysis that evaluates alternative
allocation strategies. The aLCA results identified insect feed production
as the bottleneck in the larval production system, while the other
ingredients were the primary environmental hotspot in the lasagna
system. The choice of the modeling approach influenced the results:
the cLCA scenario showed slightly higher impacts for mealworm production
(e.g., 1.49 kg CO2 equiv/kg) compared to the aLCA baseline
(1.45) and aLCA with mass allocation (0.66), but lower than for aLCA
with no allocation (1.80). In contrast, the lasagna system benefited
from the cLCA approach, with 5.25 CO2 equiv/meal, while
the aLCA scenario reported 5.40 kg CO2 equiv. Finally,
although the nutritional quality of T. molitor was relatively low compared to other protein-rich foods, its nutritionally
adjusted environmental impacts were generally lower than those of
conventional animal products. This highlights both the challenges
and the potential opportunities for the development of insect-based
food systems.