FOOD SUPPLIES

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 104, 2 April 1929, Page 2

FOOD SUPPLIES

SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE. '

I WRAT WE WILL EAT IN THE YEARS TO COME. Many years ago a critical Englishman prophesied that the world waff 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, states Mr Eric Hodgins, the American food authority, in an article in the Sydney Sun. 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 pf millions who have died Of famine in China, Inditi and Russia will never bo ours unless some terrible catastrophe destroys the very sinews of our civilisation. Nevertheless the enormous increase in consumption of food necessary 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 tho 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 bo 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 uuy under temperate conditions of climate; their pasture lands must either be large, or very well cared for. Nor are they any too efficient as converters of substance. It has been estimated that every three pounds of edible beef represents one hundred pounds of vegetable material 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 afford our' present prodigality of discarding ninety-seven out of every one hundred pounds of potential foodstuff. Thus we know that (although the . time may still be far off) the days of the supremacy of our presefnt food- animals are numbered, and that wo must find other animals which will supply us with meat for our food of the future. . SCARCITY OF CERTAIN FISH.

We can be quite sure, too, that the ocean will supply us with a greater and greater proportion of our diet. But we must be careful what 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, and although it is still possible for us to conserve the supply, the coming scarcity of these two varieties will mean that they will be looked upon in-the future only as food for those who caif afford the price of delicacies. But when we think, of ocean foods we,must not only confine 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, for providing new foods from old sources, presenting them in a way which wets our appetites, encourages us to eat healthful foods, and at the same time adds to the efficiency with which we use our food supplies. 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 numble type of bacteria, the other is the synthetic chemist. Because some bacteria cause disease, we. think of these organisms as altogether bad. This is quite wrong —there are good bacteria as well. It would not he possible, for example, to produce such food as certain cheeses or, to give a new example, acidophilus 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. * HOW THE TROPICS CONTRIBUTE • 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 when the day, comes when neither cow’s milk nor. reindeer’s milk can be used. The process which makes the coconut useful is known as the “hydrogenation of oils.” Oil.’from the coconut can be so treated- in a .current of hydrogen produced by the action of an acid on a* metal tliat'it' solidifies into an edible fat of high food value. Butter substances made from coconut oil are already on the market, and healthful and ■ energy-giving, and will 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 soybean now. Oil from the soy-bean has been extracted ’ for use in soap and paint, and the remaining press cake used &s stocky food and fertiliser. But we have overlooked, so'far, its greatest possibility. Human- foods- can be manufactured from the seed. Soy-bean contain only slight traces of carbonhydrates, but are rich in oil and -protein. Flour can .be prepared from the press cake for,'us© in bread and breakfast foods.- ' ' FOOD IN PELLET FORM.

: Whe.n 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. v . Indeed, some day be eating Wood. Essentially, wood, is cellulose, and already chemists have discovered means of changing the cellulose mole-