Soybean Products
The soybean, or Glycine max, is a cultivated summer annual not found in the wild, and a member of the legume family. A staple food that is grown around the world, the plant has been labeled the world's most valuable bean. Asian cultures in particular have developed the use of soybeans. In fact, cultivation of the soybean probably began in China before recorded history. There it was revered as a healing and purifying agent and counted among the five sacred grains alongside rice, wheat, millet, and barley. Many foods are created by soaking, cooking, grinding, creaming, aging, and extruding the soybean. The Japanese, for example, use soybeans as the base of shoyu or soy sauce to flavor meat and vegetables. The salty, aromatic liquid is made from fermented soy paste and cereal. A similar emulsion, miso, combines soybeans and rice for a soy paste essential in pickling and in soup base. Other emulsified, fermented soybean products from the Orient include tempeh , ontjam, natto, hamanatto, tao tjo, kochu chang, and ketjap. Not all soybean products are fermented. Soybean milk, a vegetable milk made by soaking, grinding, and heating the beans, then filtering them through a mesh, is sold as a flavorful, nourishing beverage. It has been used in the United States as a substitute for cow's milk in lactose-intolerant infants and adults.
Tofu, which is steamed and formed into blocks on a wedge press, resembles cheese and is used in vegetarian recipes as a meat substitute. It retains its shape and can be chopped and sauteed like meat. The soybean eventually reached the Western world by the eighteenth century, when European farmers grew them as a cheap source of protein, vitamins, and minerals.
Benjamin Franklin brought the bean to the United States from the Jardin des Plantes in Paris sometime before 1804, but because of its disagreeable odor and taste, it remained a novelty crop despite its benefit. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that the soybean was first seriously introduced to American farmers by the Department of Agriculture. At that point the bean developed into a major agricultural commodity for Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Delaware, thus earning its title as America's " Cinderella Crop." Adopted by makers of vegetable oil as a stable, unsaturated source of raw oil, it was subjected to hydraulic and screw presses in oil mills. By the 1930s, these primitive devices gave place to countercurrent solvent extraction, a German innovation, as a more streamlined method of processing the bean. Another boon to the soybean's popularity in the United States was the boll weevil. In the 1930s, the cotton-based economy of the South was devastated by the animal's fondness for its chief product. The soybean provided an alternative crop to cotton. In fact, soybeans became such a part of Southern life that developers named new strains after Confederate heroes, including Lee, Davis, Pickett, Jackson, Rebel, Forrest, and Bragg.
The soybean grew in importance as American and Canadian researchers advanced its usability. Many uses were explored. In the 1930s, while metal was scarce, Henry Ford attempted to mold a car frame from reinforced phenolic resin, which was synthesized from soybean oil. As a result of this research and development, by the late 1930s, the United States became the world's top producer of soybeans. Over a fifty-year span, soybean cultivation increased from 13.9 million bushels in 1930 to over 2 billion bushels in 1980. Other countries, particularly Central and South America and the Caribbean, observed the United States' success with the soybean and sought similar results. Thus cultivation of the crop spread even further. Part of the reason for the popularity of soybeans is the crop's versatility. Before processing, soybeans can be used as hay, forage, and fertilizer. The food industry uses soybeans in meat, coffee, milk and cheese substitutes, flour, margarine, whipping agents, shortening, paste, confections, and sauces. They are served as snack food, sprouts, baked beans, curd, and dietetic foods. Many packaged foods, including grits, flakes, formula and baby food, pasta, frozen desert, sardine packing, ground meat casings, seasonings, soups, mayonnaise, cheese, and flavorings are based on soybeans. Soybeans are also useful in processed feed for cattle, swine, and poultry, and as a green manure or cover crop for soil enrichment. While 90 percent of the soybean crop is used for food, industry adapts soybeans as a raw material in many items, including linoleum, rubber substitutes, glycerin, soap, plastic, paint, enamel, varnish, oilcloth, stain sealer, caulking compound, waterproofing, insecticide, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, disinfectant, adhesive, textile fiber, and waxing agents. It is an essential ingredient in plywood glue, coatings, firefighting foam, cosmetics, emulsifier, and printing ink. The diversity of products that are made from the soybean have clearly made the crop one of the world's most valuable beans.
In recent years, soybeans have beengenetically engineered and concerns have surfaced among public interest groups and some scientists about the safety of these products for public consumption and their environmental impact. As always, scientists and the larger community must weigh genetic improvements against environmental ills.
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