Soy flour

Description

Full-fat soy flour is ground out of whole soy beans. Defatted soy flour comes from the press cake after separating the soy oil in the oil mill.

• The protein content of soy flour amounts to forty to sixty per cent.
• Soy semolina is coarsely ground soy flour

Application

Because of its high proportion of natural antioxidants and of emulsifiers (lecithin) soy flour is used for many food products:

• especially for rolls and other bakery products, often in a mixture with other flours.
• defatted soy oil also for meat, supplementary food, breakfast cereals, cakes, noodles and tortillas.

For many products soy flour functions as a supplier of additives:

• during the production of bakery products it improves the dough; for instance through the extension of the rising period of the dough.
• it delays the decay of fats in confectionaries and long-life bakery products.
• it serves as a stabiliser and emulsifier
• it prevents the escape of oil and fat from fillings, pastes and mass (finished products).
• in combination with whey powder soy flour can replace the milk protein.

Gene technology

Soybeans: normally, the internationally traded raw materials of soya come, entirely or partially, from genetically modified plants. GM Soybeans are cultivated on large areas in the USA and Argentina. From these countries the EU imports annually more then thirteen million tons of soya and the raw material of soya.

Some food companies exclusively process the conventional raw material of soya. However, a total separation based on all processing stages between conventional and GM soybeans is technically not possible. Therefore, also certified "non-genetically modified" raw materials may contain small amounts of GVO-parts. This may be as much as 0.9 percent.

Cultivation and permission

• Only very little cultivation of soy exists in the EU. So far no GM soy beans are permitted for cultivation.
• Since 1996 food and ingredients from GM soy beans (herbicide resistant, RoundupReady) are permitted in the EU.
• Further applications for the importation and processing of GM soy beans have been made.

Labelling: soy flour from genetically modified soy beans is liable to be labelled. Random and technically unavoidable GMO additions of up to 0.9 per cent of the soy raw material do not result in a labelling of the produced food.