Research on the Deliciousness of Processed Soybean Current State and Future Prospects of Soybean Breeding

Soybeans are one of the most widely cultivated and important plant resources in the world. Because of their particularly high protein content, at about 40 %, they have been called "the meat of the field." Soy protein contains all 20 amino acids humans need, and also is rich in 9 essential amino acids. Soybeans also contain various nutritional functional components, not only proteins, such as oligosaccharides, isoflavones, saponins, sterols, and tocopherols. Some soybean genetic resources possess several of these nutritional functional components. Understanding and actively utilizing their genetic mutations could help create soybeans with better nutritional characteristics. Dr. Tetsuya Yamada of the Hokkaido University Research Faculty of Agriculture described progress in the understanding of the molecular control mechanisms of genetic mutations in soybean nutritional functional components in a presentation to the research subcommittee at the 66th annual meeting of the Japanese Society for Food Science and Technology in 2019. Dr. Yamada discussed the current state and future prospects of breeding modifications for improving nutritional functional components.