Food Makers Salivate Over New Soybean

Government scientists have developed a new soybean that’s healthier for the heart because the oil need not go through a process that produces artery-clogging trans fatty acids and it has less than half the saturated fat of conventional soybeans.

Food manufacturers, who use soybean oil in everything from margarine to crackers, are eager to get the healthier oil because of Food and Drug Administration plans to require the listing of trans fats on food nutrition labels.

Consumers won’t see the new product before next year at the earliest, however, because the first commercial crop being planted next month in North Carolina will be saved for seed and testing.

The new soybean holds “excellent potential” for food makers and “will provide the needed flexibility to be used in a wide variety of products,” the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils said in a recent letter to the United Soybean Board, a producer group that helped fund the USDA research. The institute represents companies that process vegetable oils.

“Just changing the kind of oil that’s used by food manufacturers and restaurants would go a long way to reducing heart disease in this country,” Margo Wootan, director of nutritional policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said Tuesday.

The new soybean was developed by Agriculture Department scientists in Raleigh, N.C., using conventional breeding methods, not the genetic engineering that has become controversial in Europe, Asia and the U.S.

More than 80% of the vegetable oil used in cooking and food manufacturing comes from soybeans because of its relatively low price and wide availability.

But soybean oil cannot be used for cooking unless it is hydrogenated to extend its shelf life and improve its flavor. Hydrogenation, which also solidifies the oil, removes linolenic acid that causes the oil to taste rancid when heated. The new soybeans have a third as much linolenic acid as conventional varieties.

Hydrogenated oil would still be needed for some products, such as baked goods.