Dal Analogue an Economic and Healthy Option from Soy to Bridge the Pulses Supply-Demand Gap Suresh Itapui,

, Ph.D. India is the world's largest producer as well as importer of pulses, which are an important component of the Indian diet. Over the last 50 years pulses production has been stagnant which is leading to a decline in per capita consumption. This is resulting in a continuous increase of imports. During this period, domestic pulse prices have increased relative to other foods. In the last fifty years the growth in the pulses production has been less than 0.7% CAGR. The irony of the Indian pulses situation is that per capita consumption is almost half of what it was 50 years back. The alarming figures show that the per capita availability of pulses was about 27.3 kg in 1958-59 and in 2007-08 it was 13.9 kg. In 2008 India imported about 25 lakh tons of pulses (about 15% of total pulses supply), which is growing steadily since 2000-01. Even with about 14% demand met through imports, there is still a tremendous gap in the demand and supply of pulses in India. This is evident with more than 150% increase in the prices of dals in the last five years and this situation may continue further. At the same time, lower middle-class and vulnerable segment of the population are getting deprived of the dals from the basic dal-roti platter. The situation is already deteriorating as seen from the retailers reports in the media that the frequency of purchase of dals is going down. Based on the past pulses production situation and Indian population growth, it is estimated that India may have to import at least 36 lakh tons (about 20% of total pulses supply) of pulses by 2015 and 45 lakh tons (about 23% of total supply) by 2020. These imports may only provide pulses at the current per capita consumption. If we aim to increase the per capita consumption to a modest 18kg/year by 2015 we need to import 77 lakh tons and to increase it to 20kg/year in 2020 the imports would go up to 116 lakh tons. Agronomical and breeding interventions could be a long term solution but looking at the current cropping pattern and diversification of land use to non-agricultural practices, it may take a very long time. Modern food processing methods offer an economic, nutritious and healthy alternate to this crisis without compromising the taste and food habits. Extrusion cooking, one of the versatile food processing technologies can be put to use to manufacture soy-based

dal analogue using locally available raw materials. Dal analogue is made from edible grade defatted soya flour, whole-wheat flour and turmeric powder. As dal analogue is made from in expensive raw materials, it is less than half the price of Tur dal to the consumers. Dal analogue has more than 30% protein which is more than 30% increase in protein content compared to some of the traditional dals like Tur, Moong and Chana. The quality of protein is superior to any of the dals as this product has the typical combination of pulses and cereal. As far as cost of protein is concerned, protein cost from dal analogue is almost one third of protein from tur/moong/urad dal. Another unique characteristic of this product is it is very easy to cook. As it is a pre-cooked product it takes less than 10 minutes to cook on open flame compared to more than 25 minutes for other dals. This characteristic is of utmost economic value especially in saving fuel costs during cooking for the mid-day meal programs. Also, this product can be a perfect vehicle for micronutrients fortification to combat deficiencies such as iron, zinc and vitamin A. Above all this product which has a good amount of protein from soy can certainly help in reducing certain diet related degenerative diseases like heart disease and osteoporosis. Availability of Technology Twin-screw extrusion technology is one of the most versatile food processing techniques with wide range of applications. One of the most important applications of extrusion technology is to produce healthy and nutritious alternates /analogues to some of staples. Also, extrusion technology can help in utilizing low cost raw materials as well as underutilized grains to manufactures these analogues in large quantities. One of the unique features of this technology is to fortify processed food products with micronutrients. As extrusion process is a high temperature short time process, it can retain the micronutrients efficiently. Some of the most promising products that can alleviate both micronutrient and macronutrient malnutrition are, textured protein products, lentil analogue, reconstituted rice, snack products etc. All these products can be efficiently fortified with various micronutrients. One more advantage of this technology is to reduce the cooking time of the processed products. This has an economic advantage while using these processed products in the feeding programs. This technology can be used to manufacture a number of processed and value added food products in large volumes. Some of the products and applications which have relevance to food and nutrition security in India are, A. Micronutrient fortification of basic commodities B. Manufacturing of reconstituted rice C. Production of Textured soy proteins in large volumes D. Manufacturing of high protein snacks A. Micronutrient fortification: Another benefit of this project is efficient way of fortifying the basic commodities with micro nutrients. Micronutrient deficiencies threaten the health, development, and productivity of millions of people worldwide. Eradication of

micronutrient malnutrition is one of the easiest ways to achieve some of the Millennium Development Goals. Micronutrient deficiency is one of the leading causes of malnutrition in India. Twin screw extrusion technology can offer an excellent opportunity to fortify some of the basic commodities as well as processed foods. B. Reconstituted Rice: This is a product made from extruding rice flour, which can be a perfect vehicle for both micro and macro nutrient (soy protein) fortification. Reconstituted rice grains resemble natural milled rice grains in size, shape, colour, and density and taste and smell just like regular unfortified rice. The reconstituted grain contains and protects any added micronutrientswhich may range from vitamin A alone to a mix of iron, zinc, thiamine, niacin, and folic acidlimiting the extent to which the nutrients degrade during storage, rinsing, and cooking. In rice consuming populations, it is very difficult to fortify rice with micro nutrients and this product can be a perfect solution to solve the malnutrition problem in this population. Also, this technology can be used to add value to broken rice, which is a by-product from the rice milling industry. C. Texturized Soy Protein (TSP): Soy nuggets were first introduced in India in 1972 by Dr. Robert Nave for preparation of nutritional supplement for feeding programs of the Government of India. Later they were commercialized as an economic alternate to meat and vegetables. Later a smaller sized variants of nuggets were introduces as granules. Now nuggets and granules are the largest segment of soy food products made and consumed in India. The current TSP market is almost 2.5 lakh MT per annum. Further, there is increasing interest in use of nuggets and granules in various social feeding programs as these products provide quality protein at a very low price. This could be one of the greatest opportunities for soy protein products in the Indian market. Some of the largest feeding programs implementing agencies such as AP foods, Naandi Foundation, ISKCON, etc are already using extruded soy protein products. Department of Women and Child Welfare of Government of India continue to encourage the state governments to include soy protein products in these programs. Also, in the global markets, twin-screw technology is being used to make quality TSP from soy flour, concentrates and isolates. Promotion of this technology in India not only helps the Indian industry developing quality nutrition

products but also helps in exploring the international markets for non-GM soy protein products. D. Protein enriched snacks: Protein rich snacks are one of the easiest and best products that can be introduced in to the feeding program beneficiaries as a diversified option in between meals. This twin screw extrusion technology has the capacity to produce excellent quality snacks in huge volumes. Also, this technology can use a wide range of locally available raw materials such as minor millets, which have been underutilized. Availability of Raw Materials The basic raw materials for Dal analogue are defatted soy flour and any of the cereal flours such as wheat flour, corn flour and rice flour. As far as availability of defatted soy flour is concerned, India is the worlds largest soybean producing country in the world. Soybean production increased from 0.2 MMT in early 80s to almost 10.0 MMT in 2010-11. About 17 per cent is used for food (6%) and seed (10) and rest is used for oil extraction. The domestic consumption of soybean is low and precious protein is drained off in the form of exported deoiled cake. As far as cereal like wheat, rice and corn are concerned India is also a leading producer of these commodities. India is the second largest producer of wheat in the world with an estimated output of 84.27 Million Metric Tons (MMT) in 2011-12. Also, India is the one of the leading producer of rice (94.11 MMT) and corn (20.11 MMT) in the world. Looking t the production of various raw materials and their alternative commodities in India, there would not be any issues with the availability of raw materials for this project. Market Status About ten years back National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) installed Wengers Twin-Screw Extruder with support from United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and started working on introducing dal analogue but could not succeed in making a dent in the market and discontinued its efforts. However, about two years back American Soybean Association and Wenger Manufacturing started working with NDDB to upgrade the dal analogue manufacturing technology. Using this upgraded process Reliance Retail (RR) conducted a consumer survey to evaluate the consumer acceptance of dal analogue. Based on the consumer survey, RR lunched dal analogue under Strengthy Plus brand name in the Mumbai market. Recently, NDDB started marketing dal analogue under the brand name idal through their Safal outlets. In the last one year there is significant improvement in the market and acceptability of dal analogue. Recently, Andhra Pradesh Foods has started buying 1,000 MT of dal analogue for every three months and the requirement may double in the next year.

Also, Naandi Foundation, one of the largest mid-Day-Meal implementing agency in India is continue using dal analogue for the last one year. Staring 2011, feeding program implementing agencies in Gujarat and Rajasthan may start using dal analogue in their programs. Based on the market response of this product and increasing interest among various feeding program implementing agencies and stakeholders in the industry it is obvious that the there is a great scope for dal analogue in the Indian market. There are already a few feeding program implementing agencies which are using this product in their programs for a couple of years. Based on the nutritional and economic benefits it can be recommended that dal analogue can be introduced in mass feeding programs, distributed to the vulnerable segments of the population and consumers in general. Introduction of dal analogue at affordable prices would certainly help in bringing down the prices of dals and bridging the supply-demand gap in pulses significantly. Also, this will reduce the burden on the exchequer by reducing net pulses import and provide nutritional and health security to the Indian society.
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