Already more than 25% of human population is suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Both human populations as well as animal populations are rising.
Conventional agricultural produce of cereals, pulses, vegetables and fruits would not be able to meet the rising demand of food. Further, stress of health advisers on meat diet is reducing the availability of cereals and other food articles because 3-10 kg of grains are required to produce 1 kg of meat from animal farming. Even though the availability of animal proteins can't be abundant. A 250 kelogram cow produces only 200 gram of proteins per day while it eats 20-30 kelograms of food. Therefore, alternative methods of raising food items have to be researched. One of them was single cell protein.
Single cell protein are protein rich cell biomass which is used as food to feed. Earlier Spirulina, a cyanobacterium (blue-green alga) has long been used as human food and fodder. Microorganisms are commonly used in raising fermented foods, e.g., curd, cheese, butter, idli, bread. A number of other edible fungi (e.g., mushroom) and blue green algae (e.g., Nostoc) are also known. Efforts had been made to raise Chlorella as food. Spirulina can be grown at starch rich waste water of Potato processing to industries, straw, molasses, animal manure and sewage. Spirulina is not only rich in protein,but it also contains sufficient amount of carbohydrates, fats, minerals and vitamins. Mushroom is already an acceptable food item. It is raised on waste organic matter. Therefore, nutrient rich microbes can also become an acceptable form of food. Their potential is quite high. 250 g of bacterium Methylophilus methylotrophus grown on organic wastes can produce as much as 25 tonnes of proteins per day as against only 200 g of protein by 250 kg cow in the same period. Other, microbial biomass can also be raised by using low cost substrates. While algae do not require any organic materials in their substrates, other microorganisms (bacteria, yeast and other fungi) flourish on organic matter. They are raised at low cost organic matter which are like that of saw dust, paddy straw, industrial organic wastes and paddy husk and effluents like whey.
The most common source of single cell protein are single celled yeasts (e.g., Candida utilis) and filamentous fungus like Fusarium graminearum. Single cell protein were rich in good quality protein. It is poor in fats. High protein as well as low fat are desirable features of human food. However, care has to be taken to remove excess nucleic acids and heavy metal or toxins present in organic wastes.
Single cell protein actually means to a protein rich biomass of unicellular microorganisms.
However, it includes biomass of multicellular microorganisms as well.
- Single Cell Protein can be used as protein rich supplement of human diet.
- This will bridge the gap between requirements and supply of proteins for the human diet and take off the pressure on agriculture systems for increasing the proteins contents of food articles.
- Use of organic wastes and industrial effluents in raising SCP will help in reducing environmental pollution.
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