Abstract
AbstractA growing world population as well as the need to enhance sustainability and health create challenges for crop breeding. To address these challenges, not only quantitative but also qualitative improvements are needed, especially regarding the macro‐ and micronutrient composition and content. In this review, we describe different examples of how the nutritional quality of crops and the bioavailability of individual nutrients can be optimised. We focus on increasing protein content, the use of alternative protein crops and improving protein functionality. Furthermore, approaches to enhance the content of vitamins and minerals as well as healthy specialised metabolites and long‐chain polyunsaturated fatty acids are considered. In addition, methods to reduce antinutrients and toxins are presented. These approaches could help to decrease the ‘hidden hunger’ caused by micronutrient deficiencies. Furthermore, a more diverse crop range with improved nutritional profile could help to shift to healthier and more sustainable plant‐based diets.
Highlights
Selective crop breeding and innovative farming practices have revolutionised modern day crop production in terms of increased yield, hardiness and biomass production
Most human caloric intake requirements are supplied by only 15 different crops out of approximately 320,000 currently recognised plant species
To meet the growing calorie demand of an expanding population, in the last century, agronomists focussed on large-scale production, intensive irrigation, fertiliser and pesticide use, combined with breeding efforts that aimed for increasing yield and hardiness (Pingali, 2007; Voss-F els et al, 2019; Yang et al, 2013)
Summary
Selective crop breeding and innovative farming practices have revolutionised modern day crop production in terms of increased yield, hardiness and biomass production. KEYWORDS crop improvement, health, nutrient composition, plant breeding, plant-b ased food, protein content Breeding programmes for traditional crops as well as the use of underutilised or new crop species (see examples below) could help to increase plant-based protein production.
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