32 THE CHINA STUDY
I went all the way through my graduate studies with a profound be-
lief that promoting high-quality protein, as in animal-based foods, was
a very important task. My graduate research, although cited a few times
over the next decade or so, was only a small part of much larger efforts
by other research groups to address a protein situation worldwide. Dur-
ing the 1960s and 1970s, I was to hear over and over again about a so-
called "protein gap" in the developing world.^4
The protein gap stipulated that world hunger and malnutrition
among children in the third world was a result of not having enough
protein to consume, especially high-quality (i.e. animal) protein. I, 4,5
According to this view, those in the third world were especially de-
ficient in "high-quality" protein, or animal protein. Projects were
springing up all over the place to address this "protein gap" problem.
A prominent MIT professor and his younger colleague concluded in
1976 that "an adequate supply of protein is a central aspect of the world
food problem"5 and further that "unless ... desirably [supplemented]
by modest amounts of milk, eggs, meat or fish, the predominantly
cereal diets [of poor nations] are ... deficient in protein for growing chil-
dren .... " To address this dire problem:
- MIT was developing a protein-rich food supplement called INCA-
PARINA.
- Purdue University was breeding corn to contain more lysine, the
"deficient" amino acid in corn protein.
- The u.s. government was subSidizing the production of dried milk
powder to provide high-quality protein for the world's poor.
- Cornell University was providing a wealth of talent to the Philip-
pines to help develop both a high-protein rice variety and a live-
stock industry.
- Auburn University and MIT were grinding up fish to produce "fish
protein concentrate" to feed the world's poor.
The United Nations, the U.S. Government Food for Peace Program,
major universities and countless other organizations and universities
were taking up the battle cry to eradicate world hunger with high-qual-
ity protein. I knew most of the projects firsthand, as well as the indi-
viduals who organized and directed them.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAa) of the United Nations
exerts considerable influence in developing countries through their ag-
riculture development programs. Two of its staffers^6 declared in 1970
