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This review considers alternative protein sources through the analysis of food science literature and patents. Data collection was performed from scientific literature and patent documents using the Scopus and National Institute of Industrial Property databases, with a term combination "alternative protein source" and "source* AND protein* AND alternative*". A total of 945 documents were analyzed. The scientific prospection showed that agricultural and biological science was the main application area. The food industry area had the highest number of filed patents. The annual evaluation of published documents demonstrated that this area had been investigated since the 1970s, and the number of articles was twice than that of filled patents. Although protein products are available for sale, animal and vegetable sources replace conventional protein products. Presently, alternative protein sources are already a worldwide trend in the food industry, enabling the development of new products to facilitate their insertion into the consumer market.

Animals and insects are the main sources of protein. The objective of the present study was to produce a flour from cinereous cockroach (Nauphoeta cinerea) for protein enrichment of wheat bread. To prepare the flour, the dehydrated insects were crushed and sieved to reduce the granulometry to a particle size of 1.18 mm. The flour was analyzed microbiologically and then added in amounts of 5, 10, and 15% (based on wheat flour) in a bread formulation that was analyzed for chemical composition and color, firmness, and specific volume and compared to white wheat bread and whole wheat bread. Sensorial evaluation was carried out on bread enriched with 10% roasted flour as the one that presented the best nutritional characteristics, differing little from the white and whole wheat bread. It is concluded that the use of cinereous cockroach (Nauphoeta cinerea) flour is an efficient way to enrich wheat bread without alterations in sensorial quality.

The ingestion of insects has become a new trend in food science approximately since 2013, when the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published a document entitled "Edible Insects: Future Perspectives of Food and Nutrition Security". Since then, a growing number of researches relating insects as a food source has emerged, however, little is known about the composition of their nutrients. This review describes and compares the nutritional composition, functionality and the bioactive compounds present in different insects, as these have been shown to be a source of healthy food with high protein content, significant amount of lipids, vitamins, minerals and fibers, present in the form of chitin in the exoskeleton of the insects. Additionally, the issues related to entomophagy and the possible risks that should be taken into account when consuming insects are discussed.

As an alternative, cuticles from edible insects was proposed as an unconventional but viable source of chitin and chitosan. The chitin present in the mealworm's (Tenebrio molitor) cuticles was obtained biotechnologically in one step of enzymatic deproteinization and after deacetylated. Differences in the physicochemical characteristics and the properties of the cuticles, chitin, and chitosan were investigated in this study. Commercial chitosan was used as a reference sample to validate the methods used. The enzymatic deproteinization used to obtain chitin showed an efficiency of 85%. The global yield of the process (cuticle-to-chitosan) was 31.9%. The characterization results of these polymers using DSC, FT-IR, XRD, TGA, and SEM techniques demonstrate consistency with the degree of deacetylation of the obtained chitosan, allowing the differentiation between chitin and chitosan. This study suggests that the wastes of edible insect breeding should be collected and evaluated as an alternative of chitin/chitosan source.