HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN SOURCES

Conventional soybean meal is the most commonly preferred source of protein in diets fed to animals because it contains an excellent balance of essential amino acids. However, it contains anti-nutritional factors (ANF, i.e. antigens, lectins, trypsin inhibitors, and oligosaccharides), that decrease nutrient availability and affect the growth performance of animals. Another concern has popped up recently when the prices of protein sources rise, for example soybean have gone over two-fold over the past decades. Moreover, animal protein sources fed animals are sometimes linked with disease-associated risk factors.

Therefore, the inclusion of high-quality protein sources or supplements involved bacterial, physical or chemical treatments that reduce the ANFs, improves palatability, increases the availability of nutrients (i.e. total tract or ileal), and immune system, improves the efficiency to convert into production, and increases the cost-benefit ratio, draw the attention by the recent scientific and commercial arena.