Pulses production in India-Will it ever meet the domestic demand?

Pulses or legumes constitute a major component in the diet of Indian population which is predominantly vegetarian in their eating habits both by tradition as well as due to economic compulsions. Though most can eat animal based foods like meat, fish and egg, due to limited income per family they cannot buy these expensive food items at the prevailing market prices. Milk is another protein source which is produced in India adequately but here also the average price of Rs 30 per liter makes its proteins much more costlier than that in pulses. Most pulses have protein contents of 23-25% on dry weight basis while in fluid milk it is only about 5% on fresh weight basis. In the case of meat it works out to a protein content of about 21-25%. Cost wise the costs per kg of protein from these three sources are Rs 300 from pulses, Rs 600 from milk and Rs 1000 from meat. No wonder people will less per capita income are compelled to to opt for plant proteins to meet their health need of 50 gm of proteins per person every day. 

Some pundits feel that plant proteins are not of high quality when measured on scales of Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) or Biological Value (BV), they being deficient in one or more of essential amino acids that human body cannot make in vivo. Probably this may be true but what one can do if he cannot afford high quality protein containing foods like meat? This is where food and nutrition science come to their help. Nature has a diversified source of plants containing proteins of different amino acid profile and therefore by judicial blending of different pulses and cereals one can get all the needed amino acids readily from such mixed diets. If Net Protein Utilization (NPU) another yardstick to measure protein quality is taken into consideration, egg ranks high with 90% plus mark followed by milk (80% plus), meat (65% plus), legumes (50-60%) and whole grains (50-60%). Two of the three limiting amino acids that humans cannot make in vivo viz Methionine is low in pulses and Lysine is low in grains. Considering that in a composite diet consumed by a vegetarian both legumes and grains are present and therefore the over all protein quality does not suffer from a nutritional perspective.

India being the largest producer and consumer of pulses has always been short of this vital commodity, forcing it to resort to large scale imports, some times almost 25% of its need being met by imports from countries like Canada, Myanmar, Australia, Russia and USA. According to government sources the country was supposed to have produced during 2013-2014 about 19 million tons (mt) with import of about 1.4 mt supplementing the availability to meet the demand of 21 mt within the country. What is disappointing is that the production of pulses has been stagnating during the last 5 years hovering between 18 and 19 mt annually. Why the country has not been able to raise production is a complex question and the international prices of these pulses fluctuate widely depending on Indian imports. In 2009-10 and 2012-13 the average imports were around 3.5 mt per year. Only in 2013-14 the imports saw a dramatic dip with only 1.4 mt being sourced from outside. Interestingly government offers decent minimum support prices (MSP)  to pulses ranging from Rs 2950 to Rs 4500 per quintal depending on which pulse one is talking about.

In the domestic demand situation Bengal gram or Chick Pea is at the top consumption being 9.7 mt followed by Tur at 3.3 mt, Moong and Urad at 3 mt each. Others account for another 3 mt. Interestingly Dry Peas account for the highest import being about 1.33 mt followed by Masur at 0.71 mt, Pigeon Pea at 0.47 mt and Chick Pea at 0.28 mt. Though in the strict sense Dry Pea is not a legume as is being understood by many, it is used in fresh or frozen form as a vegetable; nonetheless it does belong to leguminous family. Considering that India is the largest importer of edible oils, almost 3 times the quantity of legumes imported, government is justified in persisting with out sourcing pulses because of the health implications of pulses in Indian diet. However not taking enough efforts in achieving self sufficiency in pulses production cannot be condoned. Besides, neglecting the role of pulses in the food security scheme of the country can be disastrous in the long run for the health of Indian population, especially that segment having low per capita income.  

Talking about prices of various pulses within the country there does not appear to be any valid basis for some of the popular pulses being priced exorbitantly high making it beyond the reach of common man who either has to reduce pulse consumption suiting his purse or avoid buying them altogether. Same goes for edible oils also which are very highly priced, some of them costing as high as Rs 200 per liter to the consumer at the retail level. One of the demands made by pulse growers' community is that pulses like Tur and Chick pea must be included in the PDS food basket, priced reasonably, for the low income groups to get access to them. Manipulation of prices of edible oils and pulses is rampant with hording becoming a standard practice in the face of a soft governance system in the country. Will the government at least wake up now and "catch the bull by its horn" to give succor and relief to the much harried citizen?

The overwhelming obsession with cereals and sugarcane by the government is not understandable considering the astronomical import costs incurred while outsourcing pulses and edible oils draining billions of dollars of foreign exchange year after year causing hemorrhage to the public exchequer. As a part of National Food and Agricultural Policy of the country, oil seeds and pulses deserve priority considerations and all other crops, except cereals must play a sub-ordinate role. What ever be the cost there is an urgent need to prioritize allocation of resources from the government to raise all the food needs of the population qualitatively and quantitatively in the coming years. Government must be ruthless in restricting cultivation of non-essential crops so that adequate fertile land and inputs are diverted to the three crops viz, cereals, pulses and oil seeds. 

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com 

PROTEIN QUALITY-NEW INSIGHT INTO ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY

Food industry in almost all countries are being forced to include nutritional information on the label so that consumers can have an idea as to the foods they are buying. Prominent nutrients to be declared include Protein, Sugar, Fat and dietary fiber besides the energy value per serving. While quantitative figures do give the extent of the nutrient present, there is no provision to indicate their quality. In the case of fat at least there is a direction to declare the extent of trans fats and sat fats. With wide variations in the quality of proteins from different sources and also the pace of  release of glucose from carbohydrates, a time has come probably to indicate the efficacy of these components in the food vis-a-vis nutrition. Probably the time has come to at least insist on stating the quality of the protein in the food on the label of the package and this assumes all the more significance when it comes to high protein foods being marketed by the well being industry.  

Even a child in to day's modern world knows how critical is protein in the food they consume for ensuring growth and high protein food products lead the portfolio of well being foods in the market. However what is not known so very well is the importance of quality of protein consumed that can make a difference in their effectiveness. In almost all food science courses it is dinned into the ears of the students that animal proteins are superior in quality to that contained in plant foods. Probably this assumption is based on the fact that the nutritional quality of a protein is closely related to the proportion of essential amino acids present in them and it may be true that some plant proteins do lack some of theses amino acids and different proteins may have different "limiting" amino acids bringing down their overall value as a complete protein source.

The concept of mutual supplementation evolved when limiting amino acid issue came to the fore and in order to overcome deficiency of any amino acid two or three sources of proteins are blended to neutralize such a draw back. For example it is presumed that groundnut protein is deficient in Lysine while cereal proteins do not contain adequate Methionine. Soybean is rich in Lysine A blend of groundnut protein and soy protein, therefore can be expected to be a more or less complete protein product, nearly equivalent to egg protein. In spite of the rapid advances made in the field of Biochemistry, there are widely differing perceptions regarding quality of protein and the vested interests in boosting one protein over others from different sources have clouded the understanding of real value of proteins in general. No matter what sophisticated instruments or techniques are employed for protein analysis ultimately what influences the real effectiveness is the extent of proteins that get into the body across the digestive tract which is influenced by many variable factors. This is a problem ignored when high protein foods are designed, produced and marketed by most of the players in this field.

Classically protein was always deduced by estimating the nitrogen present in the sample using the age old Kjeldahl Method and multiplying it with a factor varying from 5.46 to 6.38 which reflects the extent of Nitrogen present in relation to carbon, oxygen and hydrogen moieties in the protein under consideration. Nitrogen content is influenced by the extent of different amino acids present in the protein. Thus the factor used for Milk products is 6.38, for meat and egg 6.25, for grains 5.8 and for nuts 5.46. Unfortunately presence of nitrogenous compounds other than proteins vitiate the results so obtained, often giving a higher value for the protein content. Direct methods are also available based on specific chemical reactions but they are also influenced by chemical substances in the complex food system that can interfere with the results. As for quality of the protein both Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) and Biological Value (BV) are the preferred tools in the hands of Biochemists and Nutritionists but they need experimental animals and require a few days to get the results. Net Protein Utilization ( NPU) is another indicator of protein quality and used by many to compare quality of different proteins in relative terms.

In a recent new study the present scenario vis-a-vis protein quality assessment has been critically evaluated and it has been found that most traditional assay methods do not present the real picture regarding the protein quality in foods. It was pointed out that the current methods  for determining protein quality shows most plant proteins as of lower quality compared to animal-based proteins. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend the protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) as a simple and scientific procedure for assessing protein quality. This methodology focuses on three different parameters which include the amount of each essential amino acid present in the protein, how easily it is digested and by taking both of those parameters into account, whether the protein meets the FAO/WHO's amino acid requirements set for children aged 2 to 5 years, as they have higher needs to support growth and development than adults.

According to the above method, a protein having a score of 1 in the PDCAAS scale is supposed to be the highest in quality whereas a zero scale makes it the lowest quality. Measured on this scale Casein, Egg White, Soy protein isolate and Whey proteins have PDCAAS scores of 1, Beef protein scores 0.92 while all proteins from plant sources have scores between 0.42 (whole wheat) and 0.9 (soybean). What is interesting is that when PDCAAS score is determined for plant sources except soybean, proteins were not isolated but assessment was made with the food materials themselves which could have vitiated the results very significantly. Also to be noted is that no human diet is made of a single protein source and when different food sources are combined in evolving a diet there is the distinct possibility that a mixed diet may have PDCAAS scores even beyond 1 if properly assessed.

It must be realized that precise methods for determining protein quality are critical for planning any healthy diet. Currently there is lot of interest in including plant-based proteins in the diet and accurate information on protein quality is needed to demonstrate that a diet can include quality plant-based proteins to achieve same results as with animal based proteins. Variations do occur in results from laboratory to laboratory in the amino acid analysis but if the PDCAAS determinations take nitrogen recovery into account necessary corrections can be made to counter act the analytical method error. Isolated soy proteins and soy concentrates are reported to have a PDCAAS of 1.00 indicating that plant proteins can also be as good as that in meat, egg and dairy products. Same may be true with many other plant proteins if they are isolated and quality assessed by the PDCAAS Method. Already Quinoa and Amaranth Seed have established themselves as sources containing high quality proteins similar to animal proteins. All said and done, consumers need not be too much concerned about protein quality if normal mixed diets are consumed regularly. However industry which designs high protein products must consider PDCAAS score of ingredients used in formulating their products and declare the same for justifying the claim that the high protein foods marketed by it is really efficient.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com