Abstract

In a world that is getting increasingly crowded and “fluid”, as masses of people move from one place to the other, proteins and their availabilityhave become an issue we urgently need to see to. Many aspects need to be taken into account if we want to accept the challenge “of feeding the world”. Quantities and qualities of the proteic component of food must be re-considered on the account of new scenarios. In this article, we try to focus on some protein sources that could offer a long-term, sustainable solution.

ABSTRACT: In a world that is getting increasingly crowded and “fluid”, as masses of people move from one place to the other, proteins and their availabilityhave become an issue we urgently need to see to. Many aspects need to be taken into account if we want to accept the challenge “of feeding the world”. Quantities and qualities of the proteic component of food must be re-considered on the account of new scenarios. In this article, we try to focus on some protein sources that could offer a long-term, sustainable solution.

FOUR FACTORS TO KEEP IN MIND

Until a few years ago, we used to think of proteins in a rather simple, linear way: there were animal proteins (taken by eating meat) and vegetable proteins (found in vegetables). We also used to simplify a quite complex situation by stating that, while in the “developed world” the two most important protein sources were meat and cereals, in the “developing countries” this order was reversed. Such a statement is probably still quite true, yet it is becoming increasingly ineffective if we consider the challenges we face with the ever-growing, fast-mov ...