Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology Department, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA.
Plant Sci. 2009 Nov;177(5):377-89. doi: 10.1016/j.plantsci.2009.07.011.
High-yielding cereals and other staples have produced adequate calories to ward off starvation for much of the world over several decades. However, deficiencies in certain amino acids, minerals, vitamins and fatty acids in staple crops, and animal diets derived from them, have aggravated the problem of malnutrition and the increasing incidence of certain chronic diseases in nominally well-nourished people (the so-called diseases of civilization). Enhanced global nutrition has great potential to reduce acute and chronic disease, the need for health care, the cost of health care, and to increase educational attainment, economic productivity and the quality of life. However, nutrition is currently not an important driver of most plant breeding efforts, and there are only a few well-known efforts to breed crops that are adapted to the needs of optimal human nutrition. Technological tools are available to greatly enhance the nutritional value of our staple crops. However, enhanced nutrition in major crops might only be achieved if nutritional traits are introduced in tandem with important agronomic yield drivers, such as resistance to emerging pests or diseases, to drought and salinity, to herbicides, parasitic plants, frost or heat. In this way we might circumvent a natural tendency for high yield and low production cost to effectively select against the best human nutrition. Here we discuss the need and means for agriculture, food processing, food transport, sociology, nutrition and medicine to be integrated into new approaches to food production with optimal human nutrition as a principle goal.
几十年来，高产量的谷物和其他主食为世界上的大部分地区提供了足够的热量，以避免饥饿。然而，主食作物和由此衍生的动物饲料中某些氨基酸、矿物质、维生素和脂肪酸的缺乏，加剧了营养不良问题，以及在名义上营养良好的人群中某些慢性疾病发病率的上升（所谓的文明病）。增强全球营养具有很大潜力，可以减少急性和慢性疾病、医疗保健需求、医疗保健成本，并提高教育程度、经济生产力和生活质量。然而，目前营养并不是大多数植物育种工作的重要驱动因素，只有少数几个著名的努力是为了培育适应最佳人类营养需求的作物。现有的技术工具可以极大地提高我们的主食作物的营养价值。然而，只有在将营养特性与重要的农业产量驱动因素（如对新出现的病虫害、干旱和盐度、除草剂、寄生植物、霜害或热害的抗性）结合起来引入时，主要作物的营养增强才有可能实现。这样，我们就可以避免高产和低成本的自然趋势有效地选择不利于最佳人类营养的因素。在这里，我们讨论了农业、食品加工、食品运输、社会学、营养和医学需要结合起来，采用新的方法来生产食品，以最佳人类营养为原则目标。
