The World's Present And Future Resources Of Protein Available For Human Nourishment, And The Possibilities For Utilizing These Resources

Man must obtain from his food supply various essential and semi-essential amino acids, in combination with an adequate amount of non- differentiated nitrogen, necessary for satisfying his needs. These various essential amino acids are synthesized by land or aquatic plant organisms; the essential amino acids are for the most part taken up into the plant proteins, which are either consumed by man in their original state or transformed, with a rather low efficiency, into animal protein subsequently utilized by man. The protein resources available to man in those forms are now inadequate, and the increase in world population makes necessary both an increase in protein production and an improvement in the efficiency of protein utilization. A study of the various sources of nitrogenous food products and of their amino acid composition (the main factor in their quality) shows that there are a number of ways of increasing the resources available to man, both by the improvement of farming techniques and by the industrial-scale production of supplements. The principal methods of improving plant production are irrigation, use of fertilizers (especially nitrogenous ones) and genetic grain selection methods, with a view to obtaining better quality proteins from species now under cultivation and to utilizing plants of promising composition which are not yet being developed. The growing production and use of factory-produced supplements, particularly synthetic amino acids, should contribute to improved efficiency in the utilization of proteins of plant origin by monogastric species (man, pigs, poultry). Lastly, certain high-quality proteins (fish, milk) should be utilized directly by man on a larger scale. At the present stage of technology these proteins can be satisfactorily conserved. (author)