Organic Soya: The Dream Bean

Soy bean or soya bean is a legume that is native to the eastern part of Asia. It is more an oilseed than a pulse and is an annual plant that has been a staple part of the diet in China for over 5000 years. It is considered a source of protein, and contains essential amino acids. It is now in wide use as a primary ingredient in processed foods and is also considered a very good substitute for dairy products. (Source: Wikipedia)

Organic foods are those foods that are grown without the use of any pesticides or fertilizers, and are also free from contamination from human or industrial waste. Organic soya bean is soya bean grown in this fashion. The nutritional value of soya bean has only now become well known in the west and this has led to its adoption into the organic movement. This was pioneered by Phillipe Vandermoorttele who started a pilot factory in Belgium in 1975 where he developed a process that used the entire Soya bean.

Soya does not need much water to grow, and its nutritional value and high protein content led Philllippe to the conclusion that the nutritional problems in many Third World countries could be solved by the introduction of this Organic Bean. Organic Soya Bean production requires a very fine balance of inputs and the restrictive nature of organic agricultural practices has led to many failures. The World Food Council did take up the processing, products and packaging of Organic Soya Bean, 15 years ago and this has had some impact in the development of the usages of this organic soya bean.

This has encouraged large Organic Soya Bean production factories to make the reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions as a main consideration in their production techniques. They also generate their own electricity from Bio-gas produced from their own waste products, and most of these larger factories hope to become CO2 neutral in their production of Organic Soya Bean.

The main objective in this production of the bean is to fully respect the earth's resources, both human and natural and see that the development of the process carries on sustaining all living beings on the Planet Earth. The producers also ensure that the sources of their beans are not genetically modified, and come from organic farms situated all over the world. Such farms adopt crop rotation which is a key element in organic food farming, and this rotation allows the crop to be grown on a different plot of land each year, thus allowing the previously used plot to regenerate itself with nutrients occurring naturally in soil, rainwater and by other natural means.