Modern methods of increasing agricultural products nutritional value

One of the basic factors defining the health of a nation is nutrition quality. Malnutrition, the deficiencies of vitamins, organo-mineral complexes, phytochemicals, is common in a great number of countries and is a cause of "alimentary-dependent" diseases - obesity, diabetes, pathology of heart and gut and oncological diseases. In Russia, the problem of malnutrition is acute. The main reason for micronutrients deficiency in food is a result of their decreasing in agricultural products because of extensive manufacture technologies. The amelioration of food products for micronutrients content and contamination decreasing is one of the most important elements of food security. There are several approaches to solve this problem. One of them is fortification of ready food products with deficient micronutrients (conventional food) or their application in a form of dietary supplements (nutraceuticals). The next approach is application of agrotechnologies, providing fortified plants with an additional quantity of microelements by means of out-of-roots treatment or by means of hydroponic technologies. The definite elements in plants are known to participate in the synthesis of vitamins, organo-mineral complexes and phytochemicals which play an important role in preventing diseases and increasing host functional activity. The plants with an increased level of some phytonutrients are applied as well in agriculture as food additives - рhytogenics. One more way is to develop and apply agrotechnologies to change plants metabolism for regulating microelements in plants. This direction, biofortification, includes conventional selective breeding, genetic engineering or application of definite С.Н. Ундинцев, Т.П. Жиляковаsubstances for regulating plants biosynthesis of some micronutrients. The theoretical basis of biofortification methodology is plants nutriomic (ionomic). According to nutriomic, a microelement as a signal or a substrate stimulates a number of biochemical processes in the cell that can be regulated at transcriptional, translational or metabolic levels. Plants nutriomic is implemented, for example, in China, where the problem of carotinoids, zinc or iron in food products is very crucial. The change of plants metabolism is possible as a result of some natural origin regulators application, including peat humic acids. The treatment of vegetating wheat with these substances solutions was shown to increase the protein amounts in grain, the level of Е, В1, В2, В5, В6, В3 and carotenoids. In experiments, these substances increased the growth index and the variety of phytochemicals of plants cells in culture.

Keywords

Authors

References