Soya can bridge the protein gap

Mumbai, March 17 - India has been in a large import market for pulses for nearly 30 years now and the import volumes are simply expanding.

Currently, our imports are about 30 lakh tonnes a year valued at about Rs 10,000 crore. We have the dubious distinction of being the world's largest producers, consumers and importers of pulses, and yet there is widespread malnutrition and protein deficiency.

Is there any way the protein deficiency created by shortage of pulses can be addressed?

Growing interest among food and nutrition scientists as well as managers of the country's food security to look for cheaper alternatives may well turn the spotlight on soya which is also a protein rich crop domestically grown.

India is the world's fifth largest producer of soyabean. Output has been rising steadily and currently stands at 90 lakh tonnes. The bean contains 17-18 per cent oil and about 40 per cent protein. After extraction of oil, the protein level in defatted meal improves to 50 per cent.

Protein quality

Soya protein is widely known as a good vegetable protein source for human consumption, according to Dr M. M. Krishna, senior consultant with American Soybean Association (ASA), who told Business Line that soya has excellent protein quality and fully meets the requirements of essential amino acids for different age groups.

While soy-based foods are popular around the world, in our country too soya food products such as soya milk, nuggets, tofu and soy sauce are being consumed.

“Soya protein isolate consumption has registered rapid growth through health and wellness supplements as well,” points out Dr Krishna.

While soya flour with 50 per cent protein may be a viable and convenient alternative to dals in many food preparations, consumers still prefer to see a product that resembles, cooks and tastes like dal.

“A solution is now available,” asserts Dr Krishna pointing out to the development of technology for production of dal analogue using soya.

Soy-dal analogue

WengerInc, a leading extruder manufacturing company in the US has developed the concept and technology for soya-dal analogue and has teamed up with ASA to fine-tune the product attributes and culinary applications to suit Indian consumers' taste, flavour and textural preferences.

Soy-dal analogue is a processed product based on equal proportions of defatted soya flour and wheat flour.

The product resembling tur/arhar dal (pigeon peas) in physical and cooking characteristics is produced by food extrusion technology, Dr Krishna points out adding it cooks in 5-10 minutes and does not require pressure cooking.

Most interestingly, the defatted soya flour when mixed with wheat flour or rice flour or a combination of rice and wheat flours contains more protein (30 per cent) as compared with tur dal (22-23 per cent), he remarked adding the product is amenable to fortification with micro nutrients.

Obviously, the soya-dal analogue has the potential to be used in many nutrition intervention programmes of the Government because of easy availability, acceptability and affordability.

Mother Dairy is said to have taken the lead to commercialise the product with daily capacity of 50 tonnes and marketed under a brand name.

Many are likely to follow.

While rising incomes and demographic pressure drive up demand for the protein-rich legume, inadequate attention to production and distribution issues for long have resulted in pulses prices skyrocketing and going out of reach of a large number of consumers.

There has been no major breakthrough in seed technology; and for growers there is little incentive in the form of marketing support, unlike say rice and wheat. All this is telling on the health of poor consumers.

There is pervasive malnutrition, especially among the poor who are unable to access proteins and calories at affordable rates.

India's stagnating pulses acreage and output as also growing consumption demand and rising import dependence is by now well known.

No wonder, the per capita availability of pulses has declined to a precipitous 40 grams a day from the high level of 70 grams a day 50 years ago.

The poor are the worst sufferers. Soya can very well come to the rescue.

by G. Chandrashekhar