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PMauro Serafini, head of research, said: "At least two billion people, a quarter of the world's population, regularly eat insects.
"The rest of us will need a little more encouragement.
"Edible insects are an excellent source of protein, polyunsaturated fatty acids, minerals, vitamins and fiber.
"But until now, no one compared them to conventional functional foods such as olive oil or orange juice in terms of antioxidant activity.
"In the future, we could also adapt the diets for the breeding of insects in order to increase their antioxidant content for animal or human consumption."
Insects are gradually becoming part of the British diet.
Last November, Sainsbury's announced that it would become the first UK supermarket to stock edible insects, by launching the Smoky BBQ Grilled Ek Grub in 250 stores across the country.
Crickets are marketed both as a stand-alone snack or as a garnish for dishes such as tacos, noodles or salads.
In 2017, Deliveroo customers in parts of London began ordering items such as cricket spicy rice cakes, salted cricket and smoked tomato salad, as well as buffalo worms wrapped in a beta sheet of the application.
For new research, the team tested a range of commercially available edible insects and invertebrates, using various measures of antioxidant activity.
The inedible parts such as wings and stings were removed, then the insects were ground and two parts extracted for each species: the fat and anything that could dissolve in the water.
Each extract was then tested separately.
The insects themselves vegetarians had a much higher antioxidant capacity than those like tarantulas and black scorpions.
Among the different species available for human consumption, beetles (beetles), lepidopterans (caterpillars) and hymenopterans (bees, wasps and ants) account respectively for 31, 18 and 14% of total insect consumption in the world. world.
The new study is published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition.
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