Researchers found that cockroach milk proteins boast more than triple the energy content of dairy milk, winning the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Milk proteins from Diploptera punctata, the Pacific beetle cockroach, have more than three times as much energy as milk proteins from cows
Source: Scientist Digest, September 3, 2026. Link. D. punctata, in particular, is one of the few cockroach species that produces a nutritionally dense, crystalline “milk” to feed their live-born young.
“. . . a single cockroach milk crystal can contain more than three times the energy of an equivalent amount of dairy milk . . . but it would take over 400 harvested roaches to fill a single shot glass with cockroach milk.”
Also see: What is cockroach milk? A-Z Animals, February 9, 2022. Cockroach milk is high in proteins, fats, and carbohydrates; it’s one of the only known milk alternatives to have all nine amino acids. Differing from mammals, the Pacific beetle cockroach ferments crystallized milk protein structures in its midgut. These milky crystals are then fed to the embryonic roach larvae as they develop.
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