The soyabean (Glycine max) is a legume, from the soya plant, is used as a raw material for many soya products. Soya contains 19% fat and 35% protein. Soyabean oil is the most consumed vegetable oil worldwide, 79 percent is directly ground into soya meal that serves as a protein-rich raw material for animal feed. The share of soya hulls (soya meal), in this, is 1 percent small.

Most soyabeans are yellow, but there are also black, brown and green.

Ingredients
Soya contains lecithin. This is a substance that keeps cholesterol in solution (a so-called emulsifier). This can reduce heart and vascular diseases. Soya also contains a large amount of protein. As a result, the same diseases can be obtained with excessive intake of soya alongside excessive meat consumption. Soya also contains the protein the Bowman-Birk Inhibitor. This protein is known for its positive, anti-carcinogenic and anti-inflammatory effect.

In addition, soya contains fat.

What is it?
Soyabean pods can be unripe & picking fresh green to eat as a vegetable, we wrote about that earlier (here). But if you leave these same pods on the plant and wait long enough, they will dry out automatically (just look). They are dried and already harvested, the pod is thrown away, the dried bean is what matters.

How to use?
Soya milk is made from dried soyabeans. The applications for soya milk are just as diverse as those for cow’s milk, up to and including cheese ( similar to tofu). Only the taste of soya milk is still a bridge too far for many Westerners: a bit stiff and milky. And if the sheets are not rubbed off after soaking, they are still a bit bitter too. Soaked soyabeans can be cooked and processed in casseroles like other legumes, but they can also be roasted in the oven. Then they look a bit like peanuts, in fact, there are “soya nuts” on the market that taste exactly like cocktail nuts.