Will plants replace meat?

Not a day passes without somebody telling us what to eat: doctors, dieticians, nutritionists and even our spouses. I do not know if my grandparents were bombarded with so much wise counsel. Maybe, they would have lived longer in better health if they had received and heeded to such advice. But the moot question is, do we know enough, even now, to proffer such unqualified advice?

I recall that in my youth the main focus of economists, statisticians and other pundits working on nutrition was to find out how many calories the unskilled labourer who earns his bread by, say, lifting loads, should eat in order to live healthily. This they linked to calculations for planning on a national scale for cereal production and distribution, and also for determining wages. Even among the rich, fruits were not so much favoured as a drink of Ovaltine every night. Ovaltine was merely flavoured malted milk and eggs. Some among the non-vegetarians even now use the term ghaas-phoos (Hindi for grass and hay, literally) pejoratively when referring to vegetarians.

misreading

The history of uncovering the secrets of nature to find the best food that we should take is replete with instances of misreading the sign posts en route. A century ago, some claimed that all we needed for our wellness were macronutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Curiously, German scientist Justus von Liebig is held responsible for overly simplifying our understanding of the food chain at its both ends — production and consumption.

He thought that he had found the ultimate chemical key to soil fertility by identifying the role of the three letters in the periodic table: N,P and K. The entire edifice of the agricultural industry to this day is built on the requirement of these three elements — nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Ironically, it is the same Liebig who thought that man can live on bread alone, that is, by consuming only macronutrients.

Yet researchers subsequently found that sailors were falling sick although well fed on macronutrients. The mystery of this sickness was solved when the second key was unlocked in the form of vitamins. But that was not all.

Researchers in the last few decades have further discovered how secondary metabolites such as polyphenols produced by plants play an important role in health and nutrition. Many are potent anti-oxidants; some help prevent or fight cancer; some others are antimicrobials. The wonderful reality is that this discovery was not the result of synthesising chemicals in laboratories but of systematically studying what the plant kingdom has to offer Homo sapiens . As it happens, many kinds of polyphenols, especially flavinols, give a fruit or vegetable its characteristic taste.

Humans benefit

But why should the plants produce polyphenols for us? Botanists suggest polyphenols help plants fight pests. Who would have thought that humans would profit from these natural pesticides?

Do plants produce more such stuff that enhance our well being? When would we finally understand the complexity of food and factors such as soil, pests, weeds and so on which regulate its production? Will greater understanding of plants make us all vegetarians; or, as our digestive system, including the teeth, is made for meat eating, shall we continue to be omnivores?

(The author is former Member, Ordnance Factories.)

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