Chemical Substitutes for Dietary Protein

Abstract

THE stimulating article by Dr. Benesch on the utilization of non-protein nitrogenous compounds as protein substitutes which was recently published in NATURE¹is a timely contribution to an important subject. At the outset, Dr. Benesch explains that his object in writing the article is to show that ‘the problem has reached a practical stage”. This opinion is, however, by no means shared by all those who have studied the voluminous literature on the subject published (mainly from the Continent) during the past twenty years. In fact the attitude of Krebs, who reviewed the subject exhaustively in 1937, is in many respects diametrically opposed to that of Dr. Benesch. Moreover, it is all too frequently found that the same set of results is accorded entirely opposite interpretations according to the particular outlook of the workers concerned.