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NUTRIENT CONTENT OF SOME COMMON SOY PRODUCTS Fermented Soyfood, SOYNATTO ® |
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Classification of Soy Products Is it better to consume pieces of food, or to eat the whole food? Nutrient Table of Soy Products (15 seconds to download at 56K) Classification of Soy Products For convenience, one might classify soy products into two major categories. 1. Constituents separated or removed from soy beans. This category would include products like Isoflavone Concentrates, Isolated Soy Protein, Lecithin, and Soybean Oil. 2. Foods made with soy that is whole or minimally processed such as partial removal of oil by pressing. This category would include products like Edamame, Natto, Miso, Soy Sauce and Tempeh. Is it better to consume pieces of food, or to eat the whole food? That is a question each person must answer for themselves. However, in the Natural Foods marketplace many consumers believe that when chemists take food apart in order to sell its component parts, the "Life" or "Vitality" of that food slips away; the complex living food being reduced to a mere chemical. When scientists then study those components, they learn about the chemistry of each specific component in isolation without the complex "links" with other co-functional and synergistic constituents of the original food. Some might wonder if focusing manufacturing and research efforts on a particular chemical is detrimental to appreciating the superior functionality and nourishing synergism of the original complex nutrient-containing food. It's somewhat like thinking "I have isolated beta carotene, so who needs the rest of the carrot?", or "I have isolated soy isoflavones, so who needs the rest of the soy bean?" Nature always provides a co-functional food matrix with its nutrients. The synergistic effect of all those nutrients and phytonutrients on each other and on our metabolism, working together in a mysterious but wondrous harmony, provides for efficient and effective utilization and nourishment. In other words, "Food is more than a sum of individual isolated components". Any harm caused by destruction of that natural harmony and synergism by chemical alteration and partitioning (de-naturation of proteins for example) is not easy to measure scientifically, but our consumers have always suspected it ruins an important intangible nutritional value (like losing the song that a living bird can sing but that a deceased bird can not). Nature does not intend us to consume nutrients as separate bits and pieces of purified chemicals and compounds. While we may not be able to quantify the destruction of natural harmony and synergism, we can compare the nutrient content of one product with another. Attached is a chart (15 seconds to download at 56K) comparing the content of a number of nutrients for several products. The intent is to give a rough idea of the general differences. Some of the numbers were found in the literature. Others had to be calculated or extrapolated from other data. Therefore, this chart does not represent a table of assayed results. It merely provides an outline of probable typical amounts. |
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March 2001,
Bio-Foods, Ltd., All Rights Reserved