NFHS-5 shows 35.5% children stunted, 57% women anaemic, and over 74% Indians unable to afford a healthy diet. This demands a transition from calorie security to nutrient-rich, sustainable food systems, where functional foods and smart proteins play a critical role.
Significance of Functional Foods and Smart Proteins:
· Addressing Dual Burden of Malnutrition: Functional foods such as zinc-enriched rice (IIRR), iron-fortified pearl millet (ICRISAT), and omega-3 milk tackle micronutrient gaps. Smart proteins (plant-based, fermentation-derived, cultivated meat) address protein deficiency, particularly in rural and low-income populations.
- Sustainable Nutrition: Smart proteins require up to 90% less land and water, enabling climate-smart diets aligned with India’s NDCs.
- Supporting Public Health Transition: As obesity and NCDs rise—24% of women and 22.9% of men overweight (NFHS-5)—functional foods enable preventive nutrition through fibre-, omega-, and micronutrient-rich diets.
- Enhancing Agricultural Value Chains: Smart protein industries create new markets for pulses, millets, oilseeds, benefitting farmers and enabling diversification away from rice–wheat cycles.
- Driving Innovation and Exports: India already hosts 70+ startups with 377 smart protein products (2023). The global plant-based food market is projected to reach $85–240 billion by 2030, offering export and employment opportunities.
Key Challenges in this transformation:
- Regulatory Gaps: FSSAI lacks clear guidelines on cultivated meat, precision-fermented proteins, safety standards, labelling, and certification.
- Infrastructure Deficit: India has very limited fermentation and biomanufacturing capacity, slowing scale-up and commercialisation.
- Affordability issue: Healthy diets remain unaffordable for 74.1% of Indians; scepticism persists toward “lab-grown” foods.
- Soil-Nutrition Disconnect: Over 95% of Indian soils are nitrogen-deficient, and widespread zinc deficiency reduces intrinsic nutrient content, feeding hidden hunger.
- Fragmented Nutrition Governance: POSHAN Abhiyaan, ICDS, PDS, PM-POSHAN, and agriculture schemes lack integrated, district-level nutrition planning.
Measures needed:
- Regulatory Clarity: Define safety protocols, labelling norms, and approval pathways for smart proteins and functional foods.
- Build Biomanufacturing Infrastructure: Strengthen public–private partnerships for fermentation plants, pilot-scale bioreactors and food innovation labs
- Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture: Reform MSP/PDS to include pulses, millets (“Shree Anna”), tubers, and fortified foods.
- Behavioural Change: Deploy campaigns (radio, games, school curriculum) to demystify smart proteins and promote balanced diets.
Conclusion:
With coherent regulation, infrastructure, farmer integration, and public awareness, India can realise a nutritional revolution that is climate-smart, equitable, and future-ready, moving from “food security” to true nutritional security.
‘+1’ Value Addition
- ICRISAT’s iron-rich pearl millet increased iron absorption among adolescent girls by 30%.
- 74.1% of Indians cannot afford a healthy diet as the cost of nutritious food rose 17% between 2017–2022
- Singapore became the first country in the world (2020) to approve cultivated chicken for commercial sale after a rigorous safety evaluation.
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