What's Really In Our Food...Is It Soy?

Posted: Thursday 30th June 2011

So just what is really in our food? Suprisingly its soy... and you can find it in the most unexpected foodstuffs.

Over 200 million tonnes of soybeans are grown worldwide every year.

Soy ingredients are used in many foods in the forms of soy flour, soy protein, textured vegetable protein, the emulsifier soy lecithin, hydrolysed vegetable protein, sterols in cholesterol-lowering table spreads and vitamin E as an antioxidant.

Wellpark students from a vegetarian household were asked by Carolyn Robinson from the TV3 hit series Whats Really In Our... to complete a regular weekly shop & compare their selection of foods with another household who considered themselves as primarily meat eaters.

A raw soybean is made up of approximately 20% fat, 30% carbohydrate and 36% protein. Soy comes in the form of soy flour and soy meal, soy sauce, soy milk, soya oil and food ingredients such as textured vegetable protein. So in a household of vegetarians & meat-eaters, who are more likely to consume the most soy products?

Click here to find out more about the suprisingresults ...or you can read the fact sheet here to discover more about a bean that's in so many of our processed foods.

Is it healthy or is it harmful? Is it affecting our fertility?

Genetically modified beans are used in many products we consume daily - find out more here.