*3.1. Proximate Composition of Meals and Protein Extracts*

Table 1 presents the proximate compositions of the four *T. molitor* fractions. The total solids contents were quite similar for all fractions (meals and protein extracts) with values ranging from 90.3 (TMI) to 95.2% (TMD). The defatting step applied to TMI meal was

efficient, since very low lipid concentrations (0.3–0.4%) were obtained in TMD and HDSP. Of all meals and protein extracts, TMI had the lowest protein content with a value of 38.6%. The defatting step largely improved protein recovery in defatted fractions with respective values of 59.1% and 62.7% for TMD and HDSP samples. The defatting step also helped to improve protein content in the extracts since the protein recovery in HDSP (62.7%) was increased by 9% compared to NDSP (54.0%) (Table 1). In addition, chitin content was higher in TMD (7.8%) compared to TMI (5.0%), and after aqueous solubilization, no chitin was detected in defatted (HDSP) and non-hexane-defatted (NDSP) soluble protein extracts.


**Table 1.** Proximate composition of *T. molitor* fractions at different processing stages expressed on a dry basis.

Different letters in the same column indicate significant differences (*p* < 0.05).
