Feeding the Economy
Focusing our attention on who eats what could be one of the more important topics this country has seen lately. Health has always been at the top of our daily list but it has become a priority again as we look at different options for nutrition. Some countries are now utilizing their oat and barley sources to improve public health instead of using those grains for livestock. Evolution toward increased longevity is just around the corner thanks to studies pinpointing ways to improve nutritional content in our food sources. According to the USDA, we are developing more efficient wet and dry methods to transform healthy food resources such as oats and barley into affordable ingredients marketable to the public as human food instead of just animal feed. Other new and improved feed options are currently being tested in the U.K. ‘Super-dosing’ is a term coined for the adding of the enzyme Phytase to poultry diets and may bring great savings to consumers, farmers, and nutritional benefits to broiler chicks. Current methods of feed include phosphorus, which is extremely expensive and is always bonded to other elements, making it harder to work with. Now, a study led by Nottingham Trent University has found that by adding high levels of Phytase to rapeseed meal (a cheap home-grown protein source) is just as nutritious as higher costing soybeans which is imported from us, here in the U.S. So in turn, a change in food means a change in feed which leads us to an overall improvement in our economy due to lessened health costs and smaller feed bills. Future gains could be charted and easily followed with the input of data from the contributors of this project. We can change the way we eat as well as the way our food sources eat by taking better care of how we utilize resources. All it takes is a bit of global collaboration. (2014 Phys.org)