Nutritional value in Tobacco?

[Fisherman]

Nutritional value

A protein of the White–Brown Complex subfamily[SUP][4][/SUP] can be extracted from the leaves. It is an odourless, tasteless white powder and can be added to cereal grains, vegetables, soft drinks and other foods. It can be whipped like egg whites, liquefied or gelled and can take on the flavour and texture of a variety of foods. It is 99.5% protein, contains no salt, fat or cholesterol. It is currently being tested as a low calorie substitute for mayonnaise and whipped cream

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotiana_tabacum

http://pages.towson.edu/JSaunder/Sa... Potential Food Source and Smoke Material.pdf

o soy bean protein (Kung and Tso, 1978) alfalfa leaf pro-tein (Bickoff et al
., 1975) and better than other plant pro-
teins including rice, wheat, and corn (Block and Bolling
,
1951)
. Therefore, tobacco leaf soluble proteins are at th
e
top of the plant protein range in nutritive quality and thu
s
could provide viable food by-products from the HLC pro-
cess
. Both FI protein and soluble leaf proteins could b
e
excellent supplements for the cereal diets consumed by th
e
world population

 

[SmokesAhoy]

i actually read a paper from big tobacco on this. kinda neat, just gotta process all the bad stuff out first, otherwise this spinach packs an emetic punch

 

[istanbulin]

As you know there's a big campaign against tobacco use nearly all over the world. Soking bans in public areas, governmental programs to help people quit smoking, different labels indicating health issues on packages, high taxes, single design cigarette packages (Australia and Turkey is going to perform this in following few years). Some governments in the world are also trying to limit tobacco growing in their countries, they're giving encouragements to farmers which quit growing tobacco and switch to other products. For example if you have a new brilliant project about tobacco (cultivation etc.) probably most of the governments won't encourage you (e.g. EU, Turkey and etc.) because of bileteral agreements about smoking prevention. I don't know if people are studying about the nutritional value of tobacco but if somebody find a economical way to extract these nutritients from the tobacco plant, growing tobacco may not be a taboo hereafter. Now, growing soy (or others) for food is cheaper than extracting proteins from tobacco leaf but this situation may change in the future, we'll see