Building Muscles from Eating Insects
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The topic of the paper and the approach of the work are both interesting. Pls find comments in the attached pdf
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
needs improvement at specific places. Change in the title is strongly recommended
Author Response
As suggested by this reviewer:
- We provided an English proofreading.
- The figures were added to the manuscript.
- The title was changed to "Building Muscles from eating insects".
- Suggested corrections were made in lines 8, 9, and 86.
- The term "lay public" was improved in line 211.
Reviewer 2 Report
The use of insect-based proteins and hydrolysates for various industrial applications such as food and feed industries is gaining more attention by both industry and regulatory authorities. The use of this product for body builders is interesting provided that the product passes the safety issues. There are some comments that need to be considered:
Line 19: “to reduce risk perception” is that perception of risk is logical considering the product is obtained from insects?
Line 27: it is beneficial to add the name or scientific names of most commercial insects, the countries with high consumption rate, production quantity (in tons) in Brazil or globally,
Line 29: “billion” or “million”?
Line 41: the reference No 9 that states “the next protein source” I would rather like to see such sentence from regulatory authorities such as FAO or WHO rather that academic authors of a paper!! Please change appropriately. Regarding above sentence, some authors and FAO describing microalgae such as Spirulina as the “future food” due to its high protein content.
As this manuscript try to introduce insect protein as safe and healthy, why no information regarding products characteristics and nutrition is presented to help readers to get better image on insect protein?
Is it possible to introduce some commercial insect protein products in a table?
is there approval cod numbers for such products from WHO? Please mention.
Author Response
- Line 19: “to reduce risk perception” is that perception of risk is logical considering the product is obtained from insects?
Response: Yes. In fact, we mention this in subsection 2.7 and include the variable "perceived risk" in the model, which resulted in a significant negative impact on attitude and intention.
- Line 27: it is beneficial to add the name or scientific names of most commercial insects, the countries with high consumption rate, production quantity (in tons) in Brazil or globally,
Response: We included the names of the most produced insects for human consumption in line 29 and the countries where they are most consumed in line 31. Unfortunately, production data is not available, therefore, we could not add the last information.
- Line 29: “billion” or “million”?
Response: million.
- Line 41: the reference No 9 that states “the next protein source” I would rather like to see such sentence from regulatory authorities such as FAO or WHO rather that academic authors of a paper!! Please change appropriately. Regarding above sentence, some authors and FAO describing microalgae such as Spirulina as the “future food” due to its high protein content.
Response: Based on the suggestion, we chose to remove the statement.
- As this manuscript try to introduce insect protein as safe and healthy, why no information regarding products characteristics and nutrition is presented to help readers to get better image on insect protein?
- Is it possible to introduce some commercial insect protein products in a table?
Response: We provided additional information in line 49, in addition to Table 1, demonstrating some products and their nutritional information.
- is there approval cod numbers for such products from WHO? Please mention.
Response: We did not find the requested information, however, we added information regarding regulatory issues in line 58.
Reviewer 3 Report
Journal: Sustainability
Review comments for manuscript entitled:
Whey protein: building muscles from eating insects
This is an interesting and useful study about the use of the extended TPB framework in order to explain consumption of insect-based protein bars and powders among Brazilian gym users.
The manuscript is well written, in a clear, precise, and systematic manner. The experimental designs, as well as analytical and statistical analyses are appropriate, and the data collection, procession, and interpretation are reproducible based on the details given in the methods section. The relatively large sample size is of great scientific and practical value also.
Although figures 1 (line 94), 2 (line 252) and 3 (line 331) are stated in the text I was not able to find them, so please include these in corrected version of the paper.
I have no additional objections and comments; and as a result I recommend publication of this paper in journal “Sustainability” after minor revisions.
Author Response
All the figures were added to the manuscript.
