Soybean
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Nuts and Seeds
Soybean
Latin:
Glycine max
Origin:
Soybean is the yellow-skin seed of Glycine max (L.) Merrill, a plant belonging to the Leguminosae family. The cultigen species Glycine max was domesticated in northeastern China from the wild Glycine soja, the earliest evidence of cultivation dating back to over 3,000 years ago. Domestication is a process of trial and error and not an event. In the case of the soybean, this process probably took place during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1700 - 1100 BC) or perhaps earlier. By the first century AD the soybean probably reached central and south China, as well as peninsular Korea. The movement of the soybean within the primary gene center is associated with the development, consolidation of territories, and degeneration of Chinese dynasties.
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In the third century BC, soybean and millet were regarded as the most important food crops in northeastern China. Soybean remains an important source of high protein to people in the Far East and Southeast Asia.
From about the first century AD to the Age of Discovery (15-16th century), soybeans were introduced into several countries and land races developed in Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, Nepal and north India. These regions comprise the secondary gene center. The movement of the soybean throughout this period was due to the establishment of sea and land trade routes, for example, the silk road; the migrations of certain tribes from China, for example, the Thais; and the rapid acceptance of the plant as a staple food by other cultures, for example, the Indonesians. The earliest Japanese reference to the soybean is in the classic Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) which was completed in 712 AD.
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From the 1700's, European visitors to the Far East started bringing back soybean seed to Europe and introducing it to the colonies. Soybean started being grown in the USA from 1765 onwards but it was only in World War II with butter shortages and the need for substitutes that the soybean crops really took off. By 1973, the USA was producing three-quarters of the world crop. Maize farmers found that rotating maize with soybeans reduced the need for nitrogen fertilizers because, being legumes, Soybean have rhizobium bacteria in their roots that convert gaseous nitrogen to nitrogenous compounds.
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Soybean is grown in lowland thickets. A subtropical plant, but its cultivation extends from the tropics to temperate regions. In the US it has its greatest development in the corn belt. Grows best on fertile, well-drained soils, soybean does tolerate a wide range of soil conditions.
Like most plants that have been domesticated, soybean is mainly self-pollinating which means that people have been able to easily keep separate breeding lines. This has resulted in a large number of different cultivars, differing for instance in seed color. Domesticated soybean differs from wild forms in the following chacteristics:
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* plants are taller and more erect;
* pods do not shatter their seeds early so seeds are not lost before harvest;
* seeds are larger;
* seeds have a higher oil content;
* seeds are more flavorsome;
* seeds are quicker cooking; and
* digestibility is greater although there are still problems with digestibility because seeds contain tryptophan inhibitors that lower the availability of amino acids in the seed. These inhibitors can be deactivated through cooking, although overcooking reduces protein quality.
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Soybeans are used in a variety of ways in Asia:
* they are eaten as grean beans and as bean sprouts;
* mature seeds are treated in a variety of ways including cooking whole seeds, milling or liquefying them;
* they can be made into milk, often used by people allergic to dairy products;
* bean curd, or tofu, has a cheese-like consistancy and a rather bland taste and can be eaten on its own or used in combination with other foods; and
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* Indonesian tempeh, Japanese miso and the well known soy sauce are soybean products produced through ferementation using fungal and/or bacterial cultures.
In the West, soybean oil is used for producing various products including margarine, salad oil and soap. The residual cake from pressing out the oil is a valuable high protein feed for livestock. It is not often realised how much soybean is used directly in everyday food products and indirectly through being fed to livestock.
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All seeds on a soybean plant mature at essentially the same time. Maturity of the seed is accompanied by a rapid dropping of the leaves and drying of the stems. The pods must be harvested when the beans are in a mature green stage. Combines should be adjusted frequently during the day so as to reduce losses due to splits and mechanical damage to the seeds. Harvesting loss can amount to 10-20 ppercent of the crop during combining. Combining seed for planting requires special care to prevent mechanical damage. As seed moisture drops below 12 percent, germination damage because of mechanical injury increases. The best combine cylinder speed threshes properly but does not crack seed. Soybeans require clean, dry bins for storage.
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See also Food, Nuts and Seeds, Bean Curd and Soybean, Black.
Properties:
Sweet in flavor, mild in nature, it is related to the spleen and stomach channels.
Functions:
Soybean is mostly applied to strengthen the body, such as for anemia (the blood is deficient in red blood cells), infirmity, antipoisoning, promoting milk secretion, leukorrhea (whitish viscid discharge from the vagina) and asthma. Its derivatives, including soybean milk, bean curd and bean sprout are ideal remedies for general weakness.
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In Chinese concept, soybean is strenghening to the spleen and relieving epigastric distention, moistening dryness and inducing diuresis.
Applications:
Soybean is used for treatment of infantile malnutrition, diarrhea, dysentery, abdominal distention, emaciation (excessive leanness), toxemia of pregnancy (an abnormal condition associated with the presence of toxic substances in the blood), pyogenic infections of skin and external diseases, such as carbuncle, deep-rooted carbuncle, furuncle, multiple abscess, scrofula, ulcer, and bleeding due to injury.
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Being antibacterial and antiphlogistic (counteracts inflammation and fever), soybean is also effective for pharyngitis (inflammation of the pharynx), conjunctivitis (inflammation of the conjunctiva), stomatitis, bacillary dysentery and enteritis (inflammation of the intestine).
1. For common cold:
Prepare a handful of soybean, 3 segments of Chinese onion bulb, one cabbage "head," 5 slices of white turnip. Decoct all the ingredients for 15 minutes and drink the decoction. It is good for both treatment and prevention.
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2. For bronchial asthma:
Take 500 g bean curd and a cup of fresh turnip juice. Boil and consume all of them. It may be administered for several days.
3. For leukorrhea:
Crush 10 gingko nuts and put them into 200 ml bean milk. Boil and drink up. It can be served for several days.
4. For habitual constipation:
Use 200 g membranous skin of soybean. Decoct in 200 ml water and drink in 3 equal parts in a single day.
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5. For diarrhoea:
Bake the membranous skin of soybean charred and use 3-9 g each time. Swallow with boiled water twice a day.
Dosage and Administration:
To be made into cooked food, soybean milk for oral administration, or ground into powder for external application. Raw soybean is used for soothing the liver and regulating the circulation of qi, while cooked soybean is used for invigoration.
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Cautions on Use:
The raw mature seed is toxic and must be thoroughly soaked and cooked before being eaten. Although, the sprouted raw seed is sometimes eaten and is considered to be a wholesome food.
Milk and soy allergies are particularly common in infants and young children. These allergies sometimes do not involve hives and asthma, but rather lead to colic, and perhaps blood in the stool or poor growth. Infants and children are thought to be particularly susceptible to this allergic syndrome because of the immaturity of their immune and digestive systems.
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Milk or soy allergies in infants can develop within days to months of birth. Sometimes there is a family history of allergies or feeding problems. The clinical picture is one of a very unhappy colicky child who may not sleep well at night. The doctor diagnoses food allergy partly by changing the child's diet. Rarely, food challenge is used.
Certain constituents in soybean are found to interfere with thyroid function. It is not clear at this time what the significance of this is. Soybean contains a compound called phytic acid which can interfere with mineral absorption.
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Reference Materials:
Toxic or Side Effects:
Modern Researches:
Every 100 g of raw soybeans have been reported to contain 139 calories, 68.2 percent moisture, 13.0 g protein, 5.7 g fat, 11.4 g carbohydrate, 1.9 g fiber, 1.7 g ash, 78 mg calcium, 158 mg potassium, 3.8 mg iron, 0.40 mg thiamine, 0.17 mg riboflavin, 1.5 mg niacin, and 27 mg ascorbic acid.
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Soybean's constituents are basically the same as that of black soybean (that is, fat, protein and sugar, vitamins B1, B2, and B12, carrotene, nicotinic acid, daidzin, daidzein, soyasapogenol, choline, biotin and minerals, such as potassium, iron), only the protein content is a little less than the latter (40 percent vs 49.8 percent).
Both beans are rich in isoflavones, a kind of plant estrogen that has estrogen-like effects. Nonsteroidal plant estrogens were first identified in the early 1930s, with the discovery that soybeans, willows, dates, and pomegranates contain compounds with structural similarity to estrogens.
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Phytoestrogens are plant chemicals that may act as fungicides, deter herbivores, regulate plant hormones, and protect plants against ultraviolet radiation. Structurally, some phytoestrogens resemble endogenous estrogens of humans and animals, and recent research suggests they may also function as estrogen agonists or antagonists when eaten by humans. Although humans have used phytoestrogens medicinally for thousands of years, only in the last 15 years or so have researchers begun to look beyond the folk remedies to investigate phytoestrogens' possible roles in modern health care. Although the popular media has at times heralded phytoestrogens as panaceas, medical data remain inconclusive. Still, recent epidemiological studies and experiments with animals suggest many varied benefits of phytoestrogens.
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Isoflavones are chemically similar to the drug tamoxiphen. They reduce the risk of breast cancer by binding to the estrogen receptor sites on the chromosomal material in mammary gland cells and preventing the dangerous C-16 form of estrogen from binding. Soy products (soybeans or tofu) are particularly abundant in isoflavones, and they have been observed to reduce the incidence of experimental tumors in experimental mammals. Asian women usually consume more than 35 grams of soybeans or soy-derived food per day as opposed to the American woman who may only get 1-2 grams per day. One particular isoflavone is called genestein. This substance not only inhibits two enzymes necessary for tumor growth, but there is recently discovered evidence that it will reduce the blood supply to tumors.
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The intake, as well as serum and urinary concentrations, of phytoestrogens is high in countries where incidence of prostate cancer is low, suggesting a chemopreventive role for phytoestrogens. Their significance could be explained by the ability to antagonize the action of more potent endogenous estrogens in initiation or promotion of tumor formation.
Scientists have begun to piece together the full picture of phytoestrogens by looking at populations who consume them the most. Asian populations consume a diet that is very rich in the phytoestrogens genistein and daidzein, which are found in soybeans and soy products. These phytoestrogens occur at levels of 50-300 milligrams per 100 grams in soy beans, and in lower levels in soy products such as miso, soy milk, and tofu.
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Asian populations also suffer a significantly lower rate of hormone-dependent cancers compared to Westerners. They also have a much lower incidence of other hormonally-associated problems such as osteoporosis and menopausal symptoms. The presence of phytoestrogens in Asian diets and the comparatively low rates of diseases prevalent in western populations--including breast, endometrial, prostate, an colon cancers, as well as coronary heart disease--suggests that phytoestrogens may have protective effects.
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Since soybean is far more popularly consumed in daily life in China, it wins the title, "vegetarian meat." Soybean sauce and a great variety of bean curd products in traditional Chinese daily use is made of this bean.
According to 'Eating your Way to Health', ninety-two cases of eclampsia (convulsions and coma occurring to pregnant women) were treated with pure soybean curd (1:8 in water). 100 g sugar and 1 bowl (200 ml) of curd were given 6 times a day. The patients were banned from salt. From the 2nd day, fruits may be given. Forty-one cases were treated with routine Western therapies. No mortality was seen in the bean curd group, while that for the control group was 2.43 percent. The satisfactory result was attributed to high vitamin B1, nicotinic acid and water, low calcium, sodium, resulting in lowering of blood pressure and diuresis (increased excretion of urine).
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Soybean sprout is sweet in flavor, mild and cold in nature. Sprout soup is good for hypertension in pregnant women, and coughing with yellow sputum.
The fermented seed is weakly diaphoretic and stomachic. It is used in the treatment of colds, fevers and headaches, insomnia, irritability and a stuffy sensation in the chest.
The bruised leaves are applied to snakebite.
The flowers are used in the treatment of blindness and opacity of the cornea.
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The ashes of the stems are applied to granular hemorrhoids or fungus growths on the anus.
The immature seedpods are chewed to a pulp and applied to corneal and smallpox ulcers. The seed is antidote (counteracting poison). It is considered to be specific for the healthy functioning of bowels, heart, kidney, liver and stomach. The seed sprouts are constructive, laxative and resolvent. They are used in the treatment of oedema, dysuria (painful or difficult urination), chest fullness, decreased perspiration, the initial stages of flu and arthralgia.
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A decoction of the bark is astringent.
Soybean reduces cholesterol level:
A meta-analysis study that pooled thirty-eight trials for reanalysis reported that a soybean diet led to cholesterol reductions in 89 percent of the studies. Increasing soy intake was associated with a 23 mg per deciliter drop in total cholesterol levels.
Soybeans may prevent breast cancer:
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Eating lots of soybeans may help protect you from breast cancer, possibly because they contain so-called phytoestrogens that help block the activity of cancer-promoting estrogen. Hispanic women in the Caribbean and Mexico are known to have less breast cancer than American women. One reason could be that Hispanic women eat twice as many beans--mainly pinto, garbanzo and black soybeans--as American women. Hispanic women average three-fourths of a cup of beans six days a week. That's compared with beans three times a week for African-American women and twice a week for white American women. Beans also possess several anticancer compounds, including protease inhibitors and phytates.
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Soybeans contain compounds that can manipulate estrogen as well as directly inhibit the growth of cancerous cells, theoretically reducing the risk of breast cancer in women of all ages. One soybean compound, in fact, is quite similar chemically to the drug tamoxifen, given to certain women to help prevent breast cancer and its spread.
Animal studies have shown that the soybean's phytoestrogens counteract cancer-promoting estrogen much the same way tamoxifen does. Researchers believe that soybean's most active anticancer agent is genistein. This was found to prevent breast tumors in animals. Human studies are in progress.
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Soybeans seem to protect Asian women against breast cancer. A recent study found that premenopausal women in Singapore who ate twice as much soy protein as most people had only half the risk of breast cancer.
Soybeans are regarded as the likely primary reason Japanese women have less breast cancer. Researchers found that those who ate the most soybean foods had the highest urine concentrations of isoflavonoids, which are anti-cancer agents, particularly against. breast cancer and prostate cancer. Typically the women ate 100 g of soybean products a day, including tofu (soybean curd), soybean sauce, fermented soybeans and boiled soybeans. Eating soybean sauce has also decreased both the occurrence and growth of breast tumors in animals. This jibes with the observation that postmenopausal breast cancers grow more slowly in Japanese women than in Caucasian women.
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Soybean and stomach cancer:
Soybeans may help fight off stomach cancer. Japanese scientists found that men and women who ate a bowl of soybean soup a day were only one-third as apt to develop stomach cancer as those who never ate it. Even eating it occasionally cut the odds of stomach cancer by 17 percent in men and 19 percent in women.
NOTE: Only soybean protein appears protective. That includes soybeans, textured soy protein, soy milk, tofu, soybean paste and tempeh, but not soy sauce or soybean oil.
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Soybean could ease menopause symptoms:
The mild estrogen activity of soy isoflavones may ease menopause symptoms for some women, without creating estrogen-related problems. A group of fifty-eight menopausal women, who experienced an average of fourteen hot flashes per week, supplemented their diets with either wheat flour or soy flour every day for three months; the women taking the soy reduced their hot flashes by 40 percent. In addition, soybean may help regulate hormone levels in premenopausal women.
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Soybean counteracts pollution and adverse effects of radiation:
Soybean paste was also found to counteract the adverse effects of radiotherapy, antibiotics, chemotherapy, and environmental pollution. By 1972, Dr. Akizuki, his nurses, and co-workers, whose hospital was located only 1 mile from the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima in 1945, still had experienced no side effects from radiation exposure, despite the opposite experience of others in the near vicinity. He attributed this to the fact that they regularly ate miso, the Japanese soybean paste. Stimulated by Dr. Akizuki's claims, Japanese scientists conducted a study of miso and one of the ingredients used to make it, called natto. They found a substance they called zybicolin, which is produced by the yeasts of these products. It has the special ability to attract, absorb, and discharge such radioactive elements as strontium. Miso is also able to detoxify the harmful influences of tobacco and traffic pollution., 百拇医药