Soy Products Galore

Soybeans can be made into many different soy products, such as soybean oil, soy flour, soymilk, soybean meal, and many others.

Soymilk is made from straining soybeans and extracting their liquid. It can then be eaten as is or made into many dairy substitutes like soy cream cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and cheese. Sometimes these soymilks are enriched with calcium.

Soybeans can also be spread into a butter like peanut butter. It is lower in saturated fat, but has almost the same flavor.

Soybean oil is made by extracting the oil from a raw soybean. It is refined, and sometimes hydrogen is added to make the oil "hydrogenated". These are then sold as vegetable oil or are used in refined foods. In recent years, the world has produced about 30 tons of soybean oil.

The left-over mashed soybeans are ground into soybean meal and used to feed animals such as cows, pigs, chickens, and even catfish.

Sometimes that left-over product is processed a little differently and we end up with soy flour. Soy flour is high in protein and can be used to make a variety of soy products. One popular type is textured vegetable protein (TVP), which is used in many fake-meat products.

TVP is also the base for soy protein isolate and soy concentrate, both of which are used in refined foods and fake meats.

There are a few types of soy flour, including defatted, full-fate, low-fat, and high fat. Each of those has a certain level of soy oil.

Nowadays, infant formulas are often made with soy protein. Babies who are allergic to the casein in cow milk or are lactose-intolerant are often fed soy formula.

A funny way that soybeans are used that we never stop to think about is in non-food items. Makeup, ink, soap, crayons, plastic, and even clothing is made from soybeans. So is biodiesel!

You know what else is made from soybeans... some types of vodka!

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