This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: New research from the DTU National Food Institute and Aarhus University shows that microorganisms can be used to specifically alter the amino acid composition of plant-based foods, making them more nutritious and therefore healthier. In practice, this means that researchers can extract greater nutritional value from the same quantity of plant-based foods or animal feed.
"Plant proteins do not contain the right amino acids in sufficient quantities to be an ideal source of nutrition for humans. Our solution is to use microorganisms to enrich plant-based foods with essential amino acids and important vitamins," says associate professor Christian Solem from the DTU National Food Institute. Proteins are made up of amino acids.
Humans need essential amino acids, which the body cannot produce itself. A protein is called "complete" when it contains all nine essential amino acids in sufficient quantities. Many plant proteins are relatively low in one or more essential amino acids.
The study, A Novel and Simple Fermentation Approach for Adjusting the Amino Acid Composition in Plant Biomasses to Enhance Nutritional Value for Humans and Animals, has been published in the journal Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The researchers have been working with a wide range of plant proteins that, through fermentation, can be effectively enriched with the essential amino acid lysine. "The interesting thing is that we can use microorganisms to improve the amino acid profile of plant-based ingredients while also making plant proteins easier to digest by partially breaking them down.
This is particularly beneficial because many crops contain antinutrients that make it harder for our bodies to absorb the nutrients found in plant-based foods," says Solem, adding: "We have demonstrated the principle using the essential amino acid lysine and will soon have solutions ready that will also allow us to enrich crops with two other essential amino acids." The results form part of the NextOrganic project, which focuses on animal feed, but the technology developed can also be used to improve plant-based foods for human consumption. The researchers believe that this method could help to alleviate malnutrition in low-income countries, which may be caused, for example, by a diet that is too heavily based on plants. The researchers have mainly worked with faba beans and rapeseed press cake, which are produced in large quantities in Denmark and the rest of Northern Europe, but the technology has also been shown to work well with other plant crops.
Faba beans are a protein-rich crop used for both animal feed and human food. Rapeseed press cake is the protein-rich material left over once the oil has been pressed from rapeseed. Both can serve as alternatives to, for example, imported soy in animal feed.
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