"soybeans" news and stories

Greenpeace is targeting European McDonald's as a catalyst for the destruction of the rain forest half a world away.  According to a report entitled "Eating up the Amazon," the eco-watchdog organization says that the soybeans that European fast food restaurants use to feed their chickens are grown in illegally deforested areas of the rain forest.

In Brazil, soybean farming has become so profitable that ranchers are selling off their now-valuable pasture land to farmers. The reason that this is illegal, says the group, is that there are regulations in Brazil that require landowners to keep 80 percent of their land forested. Once the ranchers have sold their cleared pasture land, they simply clear new land. Selling of chunks of their property means that they are keeping themselves under the 80 percent margin set by the government, but it does mean that the rain forest is getting smaller. There is also talk of ranchers and farmers using near-slave labor to harvest and tend the crops and an insinuation that the fast food companies might be simply turning away from the problem, if not outright promoting it.

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Food scientists at the University of Georgia are working with a new type of soybean that supposedly has none of the "off" or "beany" taste sometimes associated with soy products, according to FoodNavigator-USA.com. The bean, known as L-Star, is a non-GMO variety that lacks lipoxygenase, the enzyme responsible for the odd flavor in question. Aside from a difference in taste, UGA scientists say that products made from L-Star may be more nutritious, as they won't have to undergo the "deodorizing" process that other soybeans are sometimes treated to. Products using L-Star soybeans may begin to appear in U.S. markets by next year.

The only instance I can think of where an odd flavor is really apparent is soy milk, which, to me, has a very distinct taste. I've never found tofu or soybeans to have strange or unpleasant flavor, however.