While soy is only part of the larger picture of positive nutrition, it is now accepted that a proper diet not only provides us with the building blocks for growth and development, but promotes and maintains good health as well.

 

Soy, Nutrition & Health

The purpose of this section on Soy, Nutrition & Health is to provide an objective, peer-reviewed summary of the latest world literature on soy and its role in nutrition and potential health-related properties to stimulate interest among nutritionists, dietitians and other healthcare professionals, food scientists, food technologists and, of course, the general public.

All who are interested in the subject are welcome to draw from this material and quote from it at length, provided that the information is not quoted out of context and that acknowledgement is given of the source.

The review is in two parts
The 'Consumer' section seeks to summarise the 'Health Care Professional' section in plain language. For non-scientific readers, a short guide to seldom- encountered words is included in the glossary.

 

Background

In the first half of the Twentieth Century, vitamins emerged as vital elements in the diet, later followed by the recognition that certain food components, such as excessive salt, fat and sugar were best reduced. Even more recently, it has come to be recognised that the non-nutritive elements (so called functional foods, otherwise known as 'nutraceuticals') of certain foods, including components found in soy, were able to contribute to maintaining good health and address certain problems associated with diseases of lifestyle.

 

The Age of Functional Foods

Never before has the focus on the health benefits of food been so strong. The philosophy that food can be ‘health promoting’ beyond its traditional nutritional value is gaining acceptance among scientists and healthcare professionals ²⁵. The term ‘functional food’ has come to describe this latter aspect.

Functional foods are those that provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition, by virtue of physiologically active food components. It is believed that encouraging the consumption of foods which contain these components such as fruits, vegetables, wholegrain products, fish oil and legumes including soybeans, is likely to help ensure a healthier population. With modern processing technology and the creativity of food scientists, the opportunities for using soy as a food ingredient are endless.

As the increasing world population continues to require protein rich foods – the ageing population, in particular, seeking ‘health promoting’ foods – the soyfood industry around the world will undoubtedly continue to expand during the Twenty First Century.

 

Setting the perspective

Food Based Dietary Guidelines

The Nutrition Society of Southern Africa formed the South African Food-Based Dietary Guidelines Work Group in May 1997¹, its mandate being to:

• Develop a core-set of Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG) for the promotion of health in South Africans.
• Ensure that the FBDG led to a range of foods that are affordable, practical, culture-sensitive, positive, sustainable and environmentally friendly.

  The Guidelines are aimed to address the nutrition transition experienced by many South Africans, the consequences of which have been the double burden of over- and under-nutrition, the former resulting in degenerative diseases exacerbated by other bad lifestyle practices such as smoking and alcohol abuse.

  The work group has now developed a unique set of ten dietary guidelines, based on a process recommended by the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organisation) and WHO,¹ (World Health Organisation). On the basis of the strong scientific evidence that increased intake of legumes (any seed, pod or other edible parts of a ‘leguminous’ plant) improves health, one of the guidelines states:

  Eat dry beans, peas, lentils and soy regularly ¹.

  Legumes are good foods because of their rich nutrient content, including complex carbohydrates, vegetable protein, dietary fibre, oligosaccharides, phytochemicals (especially the isoflavones in soy) and minerals.

  Their complex carbohydrates and dietary fibre contents contribute to their low glycaemic indices, which benefit diabetic individuals² and may reduce the risk of developing diabetes mellitus in certain groups³.

  The dietary fibre components include both soluble and insoluble fibre, which have many health benefits⁶. The importance of oligosaccharides as prebiotics and their role in the favourable modulation of human colonic bacteria are widely recognised⁷. The isoflavones genistein and daidzein found in soybeans may have several favourable health-promoting effects⁸. Finally, the mineral composition of legumes favour the reduction of high blood pressure and vegetable protein, such as soy protein, may have a protective effect on the kidneys¹⁰. Because of their nutritional properties and health benefits^11,12, consuming legumes would help to reduce both malnutrition in the poor and over nutrition in the rich.

 

References

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