Fig. 1

Average nutrient content (based on dry matter) of edible saturniids from literature. Saturniids also contain all the essential amino acids (Fig. 2). The reported means of histidine, phenyalanine, tyrosine and threonine exceed the recommended daily allowance for adults (WHO 2007) for five edible saturniid species (Fig. 2). For B. alcinoe, amino acid contents exceed requirements for adults for all essential amino acids, while C. forda exceeded all except for histidine. No data could be retrieved on phenylalanine and tyrosine levels. Although amino acid levels for G. maja and G. belina larvae fall below the daily requirement for adults for isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine cysteine and valine, they still provide a substantial amount of amino acids (Fig. 2). Edible saturniids are also rich in non-essential amino acids (Additional file 1)