Alternative food sources are of importance in order to replace traditional and less sustainable ingredients for human consumption. In recent years, edible insects have been found to be an alternative source of proteins, lipids and fibre. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of attenuated total reflectance–mid infrared (MIR) spectroscopy as a rapid tool to qualitatively characterise the chemical composition of edible green ant samples from Australia. Edible green ant anatomical parts (whole, abdomen and upper body plus legs), pre-processing (powdered and non-destructive) and material freshness (old and fresh) were analysed using attenuated total reflectance (ATR) MIR spectroscopy. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the MIR data allowed clustering samples according to body part. The main separation was driven by the composition of the abdomen, irrespective if the ants were analysed in a powdered form or as a whole. The MIR method was also able to identify a mild effect of storage conditions (e.g. freshness of the sample). It was concluded that MIR spectroscopy might be a promising tool to pre-screen edible insect composition and to evaluate the effect of storage.

替代性食物来源对于替代人类食用的传统且可持续性较低的成分至关重要。近年来，已发现食用昆虫是蛋白质，脂质和纤维的替代来源。这项研究的目的是评估使用衰减全反射-中红外（MIR）光谱作为定性表征澳大利亚食用绿蚂蚁样品化学成分的快速工具。使用衰减全反射（ATR）MIR光谱分析了可食用的绿色蚂蚁解剖部位（整个，腹部和上半身加上腿），预处理（粉状且无损）和材料新鲜度（旧的和新鲜的）。MIR数据的主成分分析（PCA）允许根据身体部位对样本进行聚类。主要的分离是由腹部组成决定的，而与分析的蚂蚁是粉末状还是整体性无关。MIR方法还能够确定储存条件的轻微影响（例如样品的新鲜度）。结论是，MIR光谱法可能是一种有前途的工具，可以预筛选食用昆虫的成分并评估其储存效果。