The production of protein from chemicals is not the only proccss one can employ for converting chemicals to food, but it is representative of one major type of proccss: fermentation. Microorganisms arc able to efficiently producc nutrients, including proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, etc., with high productivity. With microorganisms, it is possible to intensively convert chemicals to food regardless of climatic variation and environmental pressures. Thus, this route to food production is likely to increase in both developed and developing countries. The needs of the future arc to develop more efficient methods of converting chemicals to foods and to develop more applications of the final product. This latter
point is cspccially important when wc remember that "a food is not a food until it is eaten", and it is necessary that someone be willing to buy it before it can be sold. In fact, developments in die area of application arc likely to be rate-limiting steps in the utilization of these novel foods.
In addition to protein by fermentation, one can make specific products like essential amino acids (c. g., lysine, tryptophan, and threonine) which may be used to supplement plant protein sources as a way to increase their nutritive value. Again, the limitation is frequently in methods of application and/or economics.
There will continue to be a need to trap our widespread but difficult- to-usc resources such as coal and oil shale, and to utilize effectively our renewable resources such as cellulose, as initial starting products for food. Microorganisms arc quite unique in that they can take a wide variety of raw materials and sufficiently convcrt them to foods. In a sense, they represent miniature farms and factories all in one. The future use of these organisms to overcome food shortages lies in the hands of the creative scientist and engineer.