Environmental Evaluation of Yellow Mealworm Larvae Products: Analysis of Modeling Choices and Nutritional Impact-Adjusted Comparison

The transition of eating habits to meet safe nutritional recommendations, coupled with the strong environmental interactions of current animal production systems, boosts the development of this research. This study conducts the life cycle assessment (LCA) and nutritional LCA (n-LCA) of <i>Tenebrio molitor</i> larvae and a derived food product (lasagna). Both attributional with economic allocation (aLCA) and consequential (cLCA) modeling approaches were employed as baseline scenarios to address the multifunctionality, complemented by a sensitivity analysis that evaluates alternative allocation strategies. The aLCA results identified insect feed production as the bottleneck in the larval production system, while the other ingredients were the primary environmental hotspot in the lasagna system. The choice of the modeling approach influenced the results: the cLCA scenario showed slightly higher impacts for mealworm production (e.g., 1.49 kg CO₂ equiv/kg) compared to the aLCA baseline (1.45) and aLCA with mass allocation (0.66), but lower than for aLCA with no allocation (1.80). In contrast, the lasagna system benefited from the cLCA approach, with 5.25 CO₂ equiv/meal, while the aLCA scenario reported 5.40 kg CO₂ equiv. Finally, although the nutritional quality of <i>T. molitor</i> was relatively low compared to other protein-rich foods, its nutritionally adjusted environmental impacts were generally lower than those of conventional animal products. This highlights both the challenges and the potential opportunities for the development of insect-based food systems.