Table 4.

Advantages and disadvantages of using insects in dog and cat feed.

Topic	Advantages	Disadvantages	References
Sustainability	Insect farming requires less land use and water consumption and has a lower carbon footprint compared to chicken, pork or beef production.	Insufficient studies have been conducted to determine the economic and social sustainability of insects. There is a lack of studies on large-scale industrial insect production.	[68,69]
Rentability	Insects have a high feed conversion efficiency (45–55%) compared to other production animals such as chicken (33%), which is the most commonly used animal protein in dog food.	Currently, the cost of insect meal is high (USD 2–10/kg). It is necessary to industrialize insect production to lower costs.	[68,118,119,120]
Circular economy	Insects are capable of feeding on organic wastes, thus contributing to waste management by transforming them into a high-quality food source.	The use of waste as a feed substrate, such as animal waste and feces, can result in food safety risks.	[105,121]
Nutrition	Insects have a high nutritional value, being a good source of highly digestible proteins, lipids and minerals. They also have a high energetic contribution.	Insect nutritional composition is highly variable and depends on many factors (species, diet and life cycle stage are among the most important). Insects may contain amounts of manganese that are excessive for the nutrition of dogs and cats.	[18,56,60,62]
Health	The use of insects in pet food would not generate negative health effects in dogs and cats. Insects have functional effects as antioxidants, anti-inflammatories and antimicrobials; however, this has not yet been studied in pets.	The inclusion of insects in pet diets may be associated with microbial, chemical, toxicological and allergenic risks. Although there are no reports of problems associated with these contaminants in pets, further food safety research is needed.	[17,22,23,33,39,81,86,88,89,90,98]