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Soy Essentials A Little Bit of Soy History: The soybean is an annual leguminous plant that has been in the food chain for over 5,000 years. It has been a staple of the Asian diet for many years. It was not until the 1800's that the soybean was introduced to the United States. Currently, many forms of these same products are being modernized to appeal to health-oriented consumers. The Anatomy of the Bean: Soybeans are 30 percent carbohydrate (of which 15 percent is fiber), 18 percent oil (85 percent unsaturated), 14 percent moisture and 38 percent protein. They are the only legume that contains the nine essential amino acids in the correct proportion for human health. Soy protein therefore is categorized as a high-quality, complete protein. Its nutrition benefits include being good sources of phosphorus, potassium, B vitamins, zinc, iron and the antioxidant vitamin E. Processing the Bean: The figure below describes the processing of soy beans. Click on the ingredients in green for more details.
During the processing of
soybeans, they are first cleaned, then conditioned, cracked, dehulled
and rolled into
flakes.
The
next
step is to remove the soy oil from the flakes. The flakes are then
dried, creating the "defatted soybean flakes". This defatted
material is the basis for the three major soy protein product categories:
flours, concentrates and isolates.
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