What exactly is soy and where does it come from? What are the benefits?!

Question:

What exactly is soy and where does it come from? What are the benefits?

Answers:

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Soy comes from a yellow bean called soya bean (otherwise known as soy bean). As its name suggests, it's from the bean family. Soya beans are a fantastic protein source, esp for vegetarians. Soya bean milk/ drink is great for those who are lactose intolerant. Essentially, soybeans are one of the few plant sources of complete protein with all eight essential amino acids. Soybeans also contain phyto-estrogens (oestrogens) which help to reduce menopause symptoms and may help prevent breast cancer and osteoporosis.

Like most beans, soybeans are rich in the best sort of fiber - soluble fiber - which helps to eliminate cholesterol from the body. They are a useful source of folate, vitamin B3, vitamin B6, vitamin E, magnesium, potassium, iron, copper, phosphorous and manganese.

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It comes from Soy beans and it is low in fat.

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You already got a great answer from 'm', just to add. Look for something called "Edame' in the frozen vegetable section. These are soy bean pods. Squish the beans out to eat, throw out the pods. De-li-cious!

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it comes from soy beans

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soy is in the legume (bean) family, and is an easily raised crop. Edamama is the name of a fresh soybean. Soy is widely used in everything from toilet paper production, to tofu (bean curd) and is the primary ingredient in vegetable oil. Over 80 percent of soy crops in the US have been genetically modified, with dna from everything from wheat, corn, pesticide and even scorpion venom to make the crops resistant to pets. Google roundup ready soy for more info. Soy is one of the top 8 allergens in the US, and many people develop multiple food allergies from overuse of soy. Its evil in my book, but many vegetarians rely on it. There has been too much controversy about its risks and benefits, as far as I am concerned. What I do know, is that it caused me serious health problems

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M gave a really good answer but I'd add the information that soy has been cultivated by humans for so long that no one can find the ancestor that soy arose from! It's unique in this respect since we've discovered the ancestors of every other plant (and animals) used by humans. There is *no* such thing as wild soy and the plant is totally dependent on humans for survival! The main reason I answered though is to post a cut'n'paste about GMO and soy since that weston price psycho is trying to post scary lies about soy again. You should also consider that that same person keeps bragging about how good raw milk and seafood are even tho the illness symptoms they often describe are more commonly ascribed to consumtion of raw milk.

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GMO soy...

Soybean plants are rather unusual in that they (as a rule) don't cross-pollinate! That means if I have a plant that matures quickly but offers low yield and another plant that matures slowly and has high yield I can't cross-breed the two to develop a natural hybrid that matures rapidly and gives a high yield of beans.

There are less than less than a hundred 'natural' varieties of soybean that arose from natural mutation. The earliest have Asian names like "Shiritori", "Fujiyama" or "Kwang-qui". After Asian 'railroad workers' brought soybeans to the US a few 'new' forms developed and these typically have women's names like "Dinah","Laura" or "Mabel". These varieties aren't popular with farmers due to relatively low yield and typically are late maturing.

When genetic engineering techniques became available the soybean was an obvious choice to modify because of it's natural lack of hybridization. Scientists were finally able (through gene-splicing) to create varieties that had superior production characteristics. These type plants usually are name after the college that developed them with names like Rutgers I, TAMU IX etc. It's really hard to find fault with these unless you're a true radical!

Monsanto got into the act with their herbicide resistant GMO beans (I can't believe I'm about to defend them). They developed these types by spraying low doses of "Round-Up" onto plants and selecting those that were naturally resistant to their product. They then found the naturally occurring soy gene that allowed plants to survive their product and splice it into soy plants that had good production. It's kind of weird but these plants are still 100% soy genome. With other plants you could achieve the same results through natural hybridization. Still not scary and these types of plants account for almost all GMO beans grown. These beans normally have 'gobbledygook' names like "Se127-Da14" and are marketed under names like "Monsanto I".

The scary part came when companies decided to go transgenic to put things like B.T. genes into soy to provide 'natural' resistance to insects. These are the scary ones that get implicated in things like the "Star-Link" corn scandal but you need to be aware that farmers hate these also! Companies PAY farmers bonuses to plant these seeds and the product is supposed to go for industrial uses like plastics and such (but we all know about "Star-link" corn). This does bring up a good point about soy's natural resistance to cross-pollination! The "Star-Link" problem exists because GMO corn pollen was carried by wind and bees to non-GMO corn; this *can't* happen with soybeans!! Transgenic soy accounts for almost as small a percentage of production as the natural cultivars and is almost entirely accounted for by beans with B.T. genes. These *are* scary ones but rarely if ever make it into the food chain. These types usually have names like "Monsanto 583".

You'll see propagandists making claims that soy has wasp, spider or scorpion genes in it. There are a few laboratory varieties that do, but none have (as yet) been approved for general production or even outdoor field trials! Farmers aren't interested in growing these types and have turned down *huge* bonuses to plant research plots; these transgenic plants account for less than 1% of all soy production.

You might find this link interesting as a source of what's in the *real* news with soybeans and other crops.
http://www.seedquest.com/news/topics/cro...
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Here's some links about raw milk:

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_5497717?source=...
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2004/50...
http://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/cheesespo...
http://www.megnut.com/2006/09/raw-milk-r...
http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/sny...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14961688/......
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/storie...
http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_m...

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