BREAKFAST IN 1999

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 604, 5 March 1929, Page 16

BREAKFAST IN 1999

IS CHEMICAL FOOD COMING? PROGRESS IN HUMAN DIET Many years ago a. critical Englishman prophesied that the world was destined to suffer or even to starve to death because the population was bound to increase much faster than the food supply could keep up with it. There was more than an element of truth in his remarks, but he failed to foresee the opening up of Canada, Australia, South America, the western United States, and parts of Africa as enormous potential producers of food and supporters of life. So we shall not starve. The fate of millions who have died of famine in China, India and Russia will never be ours unless some terrible catastrophe destroys the very sinews of our civilisation. Nevertheless, the enormous increase in consumption of food neces sary to sustain the growing population of the world is draining some of our reservoirs of supply. What are we going to do about it? We are going to do four things. 1. Gradually change some of our eating habits, giving up foods which are no longer available, and overcoming many of our prejudices against others. 2. Undertake, with the help of science, a much more intensive cultivation of plants than at present. 3. Discover in the laboratory new sources of food as energy. 4. Rely upon the chemists to convert a number of raw materials which seem to-day to be as wholly inedible into healthful, nourishing and delicate food. Cattle, hogs and sheep—our present food animals—need a. great deal of human care; they can live only under temperate conditions of climate; their pasture lands must either be large, or very well cared tor. Nor are they any too efficient as converters of substance. It has been estimated that every three pounds of edible beef re—r presents one hundred pounds of vege» table materials which the animal has eaten. So far we have been able to put up with waste in converting plant protein into animal protein, but some day the land on which cattle graze will become too valuable for other purposes to remain pasturage. and we shall no longer be able to afiord our present prodigality of discarding 97 out of every 100 pounds of potential footstuffs. Thus we know that (although the time may still be far ofil, the days of the supremacy of our present food animals are numbered, and that We must find other animals which will supply us with meat for our food of the future.

We can be quite sure, too, that the ocean -will supply us with a greater and greater proportion of our diet.

Salmon Will Be Scarce

But we must be careful wbat fish we consume in large quantities in the future. Halibut is a waning food. So is salmon. We have now come to consume these faster than they can grow, j and although it is still possible for us to conserve the supply the future comparative scarcity of these two varieties means that they will be looked upon in the future only as food for those who can afford the price of delicacies. But when we think of ocean foods, we must not only comfine ourselves to fish. The oceans of the world contain vegetation as luxuriant as any that can be found on the most fertile ground. We do not think of kelp and seaweed as present-day foods, but there seems every reason to believe that some day part of our vegetable diet will be raised from the bottom of the sea in dredges, and converted into appetising salads and greens. Chemists are working upon such problems, even to-day. Meanwhile, great credit is due to those manufacturers of cereals made from corn, oats, rice, bran and so on, or providing new foods from old sources, presenting them in a way which whets our appetites, encourages us to eat healthful foods, and at the same time adds to the efficiency with which we use our food supplies. Friendly Bacteria When we consider the vegetables of the future, we need to look at the problem from afar. Our present supplies of vegetables depend upon two very different but equally important agencies. One is a humble type of bacteria, the other is the synthetic chemist. Because some bacteria cause disease, w r e think of these organisms as altogether bad. That is quite w r rong there are good bacteria as well. It would not be possible, for example, to produce foods such as cer tain cheeses, or, to give a newer example, acid-ophilus milk, if it were not for bacterial action. It is even possible that we may some day obtain food from certain types of bacteria, administered in enormous quantities When you consider the increasing contribution of the tropics to our diet you should not overlook the coconut or the pineapple. The coconut, once nothing more than the source of tasty icings for cakes, now possesses the amazing ability to replace butter w'hen

the day comes when neither cows' ! milk nor reindeers’ milk can be used The process which makes the coco nut useful is known as the “hydroj genations of oils.” Oil from the coco- | nut can be so treated in a current of hydrogen produced by the action of an acid on a metal, that it solidfies into an edible fat of high food value. | Butter substances made from coco | nut oil are already on the market, are healthful and energy-giving, and win be of greater and greater importance as a food in the future. The soy-bean is another food which looms large on the horizon. The Orient, where the inhabitants must toil much harder for their food than we do, and from which we shall beyond question learn much in the future, is appreciative of the soy-bean now. Oil from the soy-bean has been extracted for use in soap and paint, and the remaining press cake used as stock food and fertiliser. But we have overlooked, so far, its greatest possibility. Humap foods can be manufactured from the seed. Soy-beans contain only slight traces of carbohy drates, but are rich in oil and protein. Flour can be prepared from the press cake for use in bread and breakfast foods. Shall We Eat Wood? When anyone pretends to tell you that in days to come we shall consume all our food in the shape of little white pellets, and that the appetising meals of the present day will go out of fashion to be replaced by a pill and a swallow of water, you will be wise to laugh heartily. The wonders which science is performing to-day all tend to produce, not less variety in our food, but more. The chemist and biologist are concerned now largely with turning materials which are either wasted or not considered as possible at all into something edible and appetising. Indeed, we may some day be eating wood. Essentially, wood is cellulose, and already chemists have discovered means of changing the cellulose molecule in such a way that it becomes available as a source of animal energy. Thus it is that cows may soon now be fed on a modified sawdust, and it is far from impossible that cellulose may some day yield a human food. Indeed, hydrolised wood may now be made to yield edible protein in the form ot yeast, and we shall be able to achieve many variations in our diet through its use when coloured and flavoured or mixed with other foods.

Of one thing only can we be certain —the meals that the human race will eat in the future will be vastly more varied and unusual, just as our pres-ent-day foods mark an extraordinary advance over the crude and often unhealthy fare of the past. Even break fast ought to be a lot of fun in 1999.