What Is Cockroach Milk — and Could It Really Become a Superfood?

Elon Musk needed just one word for it: "Gross." The subject was cockroach milk — a protein-rich secretion that scientists say packs more than three times the energy of dairy milk — and a New York Post report on October 30 asked whether it could become the next superfood. Musk's verdict, posted the same day, captured what most people feel. But the science behind the headline is stranger, and more interesting, than the disgust suggests.

So what exactly is cockroach milk, why are researchers studying it at all, and could it ever actually end up in a glass near you?

What is cockroach milk?

Despite the name, cockroach milk is not milk in any conventional sense. It is a nutrient-rich secretion produced by female Pacific beetle cockroaches — Diploptera punctata — to nourish their developing offspring inside their bodies. The secretion forms protein crystals, along with fats and sugars, that feed the young as they grow.

Researchers first mapped those crystals in a study published in 2016, which found that a single crystal contains more than three times the energy of the same weight of dairy milk. That finding is what keeps the subject alive: on a pure calorie-and-protein basis, the crystals are extraordinarily dense. The work was recognised this year, when researchers from India, France, Japan and the United States received the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their studies of the crystals.

Why scientists are looking at it now

The renewed attention comes from a wider scientific interest in insects as alternative sources of nutrition. A review published in 2026 in the journal Insects examined whether insect-derived ingredients could be incorporated into functional beverages — protein shakes, tea and other drinks — as the food industry searches for sustainable protein sources.

Cockroach milk fits that search on paper. Its protein crystals are compact, energy-dense and rich in the amino acids the body needs. If the crystals could be produced without the cockroach — through yeast fermentation or another lab method, as some researchers have proposed — they could in theory become an ingredient rather than a curiosity.

The part nobody can get past yet

The problem is how the crystals are obtained. Researchers study pregnant Pacific beetle cockroaches and access the developing embryos to collect the secretion — a slow, labour-intensive process that yields tiny amounts. There is no farm of milk-producing cockroaches, and no realistic path to industrial-scale production today.

Beyond production, the open questions are the ones that matter for any food: safety, nutritional assessment in humans, and consumer acceptance. The substance remains experimental. No regulator has approved it as a food product, and none of the 2026 coverage suggests it is close to a supermarket shelf. Musk's one-word reaction may be blunt, but it points at the real obstacle — even if the science worked perfectly, persuading people to drink something called cockroach milk would be a challenge of its own.

How much would a glass actually take?

The numbers show why the idea stays in the lab. The 2016 study's supplementary data put the crystals at 232 kilocalories per 100 grams, against 66 for cow's milk — about three and a half times the energy by weight. But each crystal is microscopic, and one estimate puts it at more than 400 harvested cockroaches to fill a single shot glass. The crystals do contain all nine essential amino acids, which is rare for a non-animal protein source — yet nobody has tested whether the human body can digest them safely, or whether they could ever be produced without the insect. The 2026 Ig Nobel ceremony in Zurich, the first held outside the United States, honoured all eleven researchers behind the 2016 paper. The prize celebrates science that makes people laugh first and think second — and cockroach milk may be its purest example.

So, superfood or science curiosity?

For now, the honest answer is curiosity. Cockroach milk is a genuine scientific finding — an energy-dense protein crystal with real research behind it, recognised by an Ig Nobel Prize and revisited in a 2026 review. But a superfood needs more than an impressive lab result: it needs safe production at scale, regulatory approval, and people willing to consume it. On all three counts, cockroach milk is nowhere near ready.

That does not make the research pointless. The search for sustainable protein is serious, and the crystals show what insect biology can produce. But the distance between a crystal in a lab and a product in a fridge is measured in years of work — and, in this case, in a name that no marketing team would ever choose.

This article is general information about published research, not dietary advice — cockroach milk is not an approved food product.

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Sources: Economic Times, NDTV Profit