WONDERFUL SOYA BEAN

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 148, 8 June 1935, Page 15

WONDERFUL SOYA BEAN

Numerous Valuable Uses ITS CULTIVATION IN H.B. Experiences in Other Countries

[Contributed by

H. R. French.)

Elihu Root, tha grand old (statesman of America, who made perhaps the greatest individual contribution to the establishment of the World Court, lately stressed the need for patience. We are so apt to fume and fret because spectacular changee are rare, and discouragements are many, yet when a long vista is reviewed we then perceive both the greatness and the rapidity of at least some of human activities. Others, sometime® stupendous in their effects, are not seen in right focus, until the actors have passed from the scene. Researchers tell ue that it took nearly 300 years for the potato to win its place as a major article of diet. It is only in 1908 that a trial shipment of soya beans was sent from Manchuria to England. Now the imports per year into Europe are over twelve millions of pounds in value, of which more than half goes to Germany, The London market is the principal distributing centre for western nations. In 1928 the “London Times” gave the turnover in that market as a million tons per year, valued at eleven millions of pounds! In 1929 the enormous increase in world production of the legume added (seven millions of tons to the former great total. The production mounts speedily, but it does not keep pace with the growth of demand. In consequence world prices are advancing. Production is not confined to the Far East. Dean Mumford, addressing the U.S.A. National Soy Bean Association at its 1931 annual meeting, held at the University of Illinois, stated that the growth of tho soy boan industry was the most significant development in the last ten years of American agriculture. The total acreage devoted to the bean was two and a-half million acres. AREA INCREASES.

Because the beans have thrived during the three years’ drought in the mid-west States, and because of the increased multiplicity of uses for the bean and its products, and because of the low cost and efficiency of Mr Henry Ford’s soya oil extracting plant, the planting area increases.

The same fifory conies from parts of Canada, Africa, India, and Russia. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer has just imposed a duty on the beans. The reasons we do not yet know. Anyway it may result in a preference for imports from the overseas Dominions.

Can we grow soya beans? At the start of my investigations, only 22 months ago, 1 could not answer the above question. The information soon arrived, of the successful tests made by the Department of Agriculture 16 years ago. Then the success of crops in Hokianga raised by the Tung Oil Cb. was learned. From a donation of five pounds of seed of the Manchu variety we now have sufficient beams to plant a number of acres, the result of two crops.

One point of interest can be mentioned here. Ferree in his book (which Dr. Marsden kindly sent to me) recommends planting the Manchu variety in Australia, as the rabbits would leave it alone. We lost a third of our planting in land loaned by Mr Wilfion, through hares eating the plants to the ground. Air Mason Chambers tells me he had a like experience. In a previous article I recorded the failure of the Beloxi variety to seed, The farmers of Tauranga report the same failure, though it makes a good forage plant. On a visit to Tauranga, thff president of their Farmers’ Union, Mr F. W. Kean, stated to me that he had distributed seeds of nine varieties of soya beans which had been imported by Mr L. AV. Delph, of Auckland. Ail except the Beloxi proved prolific. SOYA OIL. Like our Agricultural Department 16 years ago, the Tauranga farmers were asking “What use are they?” Now, there is no difficulty in answering that pertinent query. That has been done not only at a meeting of the Farmers’ Union, but the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce asked that tne story might be retold to its members. It is hoped that Massey College will help in the special bacteual treatment of the seed which Max Fiirstenberg states will increase the yield up to 400 per cent-. It is stated that Mammurian grower* have not yet called in the armies of bacteria for help. Mention was recently made that soya oil had been extracted from New Zealand-grown seed. Two tons of beans were treated. The compression method used in the 500 Japanese oil mills in Manchuria does not extract the whole of the oil. Mr Ford’s process does. In a few weeks the information of the market price of his plant should arrive. The pioneering work of Mr Delph should be recorded. Mr Delph imported seed at his own expense for free distribution, and arranged for the analysis to prove the oil content when the crops were garnered. The only official recognition to date is the imposition of a penalty in the shape of customs duty upon his imports I Whether oil, flour, or milk is obtained from the beans its food content, whether for poultry, pigs, cattle, or human beings is practically unsurpassed. Of that more anon. Soya oil for its edible quality is in No. 1 class for margarine or cooking. Mr Ford uses it for machine cores instead of linseed oil. I previously mentioned his manufacture of a super enamel from it. Then it is used in the making of oil cloths, paints, explosive® and quite a few other things with the probability of many more to follow. SOYA FLOUR. In some health food shops in this Dominion soya beans are being sold for their intrinsic value. The purchasers soak the beam, and boil them lor j hours, and try to swallow whole what they cannot bile. They are not yet ready to be used as a vegetable, though endeavours are proceeding to raise soya beans that will cook soft. Bernard Maefadden, the physical culture man, frankly states he dislikes the tafite of soya food products On the other hand the editor of tho Australian physical culture magazine is only wailing till he can buy more soya flour so as to enjoy more cookies made with it. The variance comes from the method of making the flour. With the high oil content in the bean a special process , is required, or else the flour will seqa

go rancid. The Bercyeller method not only ensures keeping qualities but the flavour is transformed. The Australian editor used Bercyeller soya flour. The miller who has ground the first New Zealand soya flour wa® unaware of any special process. Those who use it will not raise hymns of praise to soya flour, though for diabetics soya bread is such an essential that taste is quite secondary.

From all reports the Bercyeller method eliminates a certain bitterness which ordinary grinding does not. Whether that process is obtainable for use in New Zealand is the subject of enquiries which are proceeding. Soya flour has arrived to stay. Even 10 per cent, of it, to 90 per cent, of wheaten flour raises trie protein in bread 3-i per cent., fat nearly 2 per cent,, soluble carbohydrates over 1 per cent., and reduces starch nearly 5 per cent., and in addition provides vitamins A, B and D and lecithin (an essential found in egg yolk) which are not present in wheaten bread. It is yet to be told whether soya bread will lessen acidity in digestion which wheaten bread often produces. Such scientific knowledge is bound to be put to practical use. And so it has.

Professor Moll reports good results from the use of Bercyeller soya flour in the dietary of tubercular children. Children who did not thrive on cow’s milk improved on soya flour. The municipality of Amsterdam uses soya flour in the feeding of 6000 to 7000 poor children. The league for the protection of children in Hungary has commenced a distribution of soya flour to children’s homes, sanatoria, etc., Other testimonies may be given, suffice to say that Dr. Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, president of the New Health Society of Great Britain, points out the high percentages of fats and proteins in soya flour, how satisfactory a source it is of vitamins, and its high percentage of organically combined phosphates necessities for the health maintenance of the nervous system. He adds that the consumption of soya beans in suitable forms is as yet very small in Western nations. They would make a most valuable addition to each day’s food.

It has been previously mentioned that tens of thousands of Japanese and Chinese babies are raised on soya milk. The Easterners are not to monopolize such use. Denmark, the progressive, has already opened its first soya milk factory I In the last report I have seen of Mr Ford’s activities, he was delighted with the new milk .made in hi® laboratory. He Ims the endorsement of many scientists when he says it far exceeds cow’s milk in nutrition. Something fresh he adds when he says it keeps far better. The foregoing doos not exhaust the material that has been gathered. It is time to get busy, for New Zealand is able to do its part in this rapid and remarkable development. Is there any other avenue of land cultivation that has so few risks and such great promise? The crop will enrich the land and should enrich the grower. A year ago, I told some of tho Knrnmu village settlers they could not afford to experiment with soya beans. To-dnv wo cannot afford further Io ncvlcif (he many possinllifios of their ci'ltiiro Wo have labour wasting to n dis+>essful extent, we have the land, we have tho sunshine necessary for the befit results. What is to hinder going right ahead?.