During World War II, Dow Chemical Co. was assigned a tough job. It had to make synthetic amino acids needed to speed the recovery of wounded soldiers. In doing the job, Dow experimented with chickens, noted that the birds grew bigger and faster when an amino acid called di-methionine was added to their diet. Dow thought di-methionine had commercial possibilities, but there was one hitch: it cost $11 a lb. Dow spent $200,000 on research, another $1,000,000 on a plant in Pittsburg, Calif, with a capacity of 2,000 Ibs. of di-methionine a day. This week, Dow put di-methionine on...
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