How can the new functional components of soybeans be developed and utilized?
China is the homeland of soybeans, and over the long course of history, "soybeans have nurtured the Chinese nation." Modern science has discovered that the functional components of soybeans that nurtured the Chinese nation are mainly found in soybean meal. High-temperature soybean meal is the highest-yield product of the soybean oil processing industry. Whether the effective components in high-temperature soybean meal can be extracted is key to revitalizing China's soybean oil processing industry.
The National Soybean Deep Processing Technology Research and Promotion Center invented a process using high-temperature soybean meal as raw material to continuously extract high-purity soybean oligopeptides, soybean isoflavones, soybean composite functional factors, and soybean protein concentrate specially for flour products. Because the production process and physicochemical indicators of the extracts differ from similar products at home and abroad, this is an independent innovation @#@78@#@, so it is temporarily called "new functional components."
1. New functional components of soybeans and efficacy tests
(1) High-purity soybean oligopeptides Since the 1970s, humans have discovered that soybean protein, after controlled hydrolysis and refinement, can generate a small-molecule protein that differs from ordinary proteins with complex structures and molecular weights mainly distributed above 105D. By the early 21st century, China formulated the soybean peptide powder industry standard, collectively calling soybean proteins with a molecular weight not higher than 104D soybean peptides.
The high-purity soybean oligopeptides invented and produced by this project use high-temperature desolventized soybean meal as raw material. For the first time, non-protein components are separated and extracted, water-insoluble proteins are retained in reverse and biologically enzymatically hydrolyzed. The protein purity of the product is not less than 96.02%, far higher than similar products at home and abroad. The proportion of components with molecular weight distribution not higher than 1041) is 94.39%, significantly smaller than similar products at home and abroad. The solubility is 100%, the NSI value is 100%, and the ash content is not higher than 1.5%. To distinguish it from similar soybean peptide products at home and abroad, it is temporarily named "high-purity soybean oligopeptides." The comprehensive production cost of high-purity soybean oligopeptides is 50 yuan/kg. At an ex-factory price of 150 yuan/kg, processing just high-purity soybean oligopeptides from each 1 t of soybean meal yields profits and taxes of more than 10,000 yuan.
Test results prove that after pigs were fed high-purity soybean oligopeptides by gavage, they were detected in the blood 5 min after administration; 10 min after administration, the blood drug concentration reached its peak. High-purity soybean oligopeptides can directly and rapidly enter the blood and be absorbed after ingestion without undergoing digestive enzymatic hydrolysis. This is 2% of the blood-entry time and speed of ordinary protein, which requires about 4 h after ingestion to be detected in the blood.
High-purity soybean oligopeptides were administered by gavage to Kunming strain mice at doses of 10 g/kg to 30 g/kg. The acute toxicity test results showed that no poisoning occurred in the mice.
After test mice were given high-purity soybean oligopeptides by gavage at a dose of 50 mg per 1 kg body weight, their swimming time was significantly longer than that of the control group. The test groups with the longest swimming time were the mice given the dose 10 min and 20 min earlier, with average swimming times reaching 25.06 min and 32.35 min respectively, which were 4.12 times and 5.32 times those of the control group. This is completely consistent with the pharmacokinetic test results, namely that after ingesting high-purity soybean oligopeptides, the blood drug peak is reached at 10 min, while producing an obvious effect of rapidly converting into physical energy and producing an anti-fatigue effect within a short period (10 min).
(2) Soybean isoflavones The high-purity isoflavones extracted by this project have total isoflavones of 95.93%, of which genistin is 90.61% and daidzin is 5.32%. The pilot-stage product has already been exported to Japan.
Although genistin and daidzin both belong to the soybean isoflavone family, due to different structures, their medical and health care efficacy differs.
Experimental results show that high-purity soybean isoflavones have a significant inhibitory effect on breast cancer in mice, with a tumor inhibition rate of 36.0% to 61.3%. At the same time, it shows that women taking low-purity soybean isoflavones at about 5 g per day, equivalent to taking about 20 mg of genistin (G), showed P lower than 0.01 after self-controlled statistical processing, with a significant difference, and can significantly increase women's estradiol levels, having the effect of delaying menopause and delaying aging in women.
(3) Soybean composite functional factors Soybean composite functional factors are a new product of this invention, containing multiple nutritional components necessary for human growth and development and medical health care.
Because of comprehensive processing, the production cost of the soybean composite functional factors produced by this project is extremely low, with a comprehensive production cost of 30 yuan per 1 kg. If, according to the US FDA recommendation, each person ingests 20 mg to 90 mg of isoflavones daily for the prevention and treatment of tumors in women, then the daily medication cost is only 0.09 yuan to 0.15 yuan. It is a low-cost new product that can make health nutrition accessible to the general public.
(4) Soybean protein concentrate specially for flour products The functional soybean protein concentrate specially for flour products produced by this project has a greatly reduced comprehensive utilization cost, with a cost below 3,000 yuan/t. The export price of the pilot product is 550 USD/t, which is 50% of the current price of similar protein concentrate (protein >=65%) in China. Adding the functional soybean protein concentrate specially for flour products to flour can fortify the protein content of flour.
In November 2000, the American Heart Association pointed out that each person ingesting 50 g of soybean protein daily can effectively reduce the harm of heart disease to the human body. Test results prove that, compared with control flour, using high-protein flour added with functional soybean protein concentrate specially for flour products as raw material comprehensively improves the quality of processed products, among which cake increases by 10%, bread by 2%, and noodles by 3%.
Adding functional soybean protein concentrate specially for flour products to flour products fortifies the soybean protein nutrition of flour-based staple foods. This is the simplest, safest, and easiest-to-implement way to achieve the National Soybean Action Plan's goal of increasing the nationwide intake of soybean protein. Because high-protein flour basically does not increase the economic burden on the state and residents, it can also improve the nationwide nutritional supply of soybean protein and effectively prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases. In 2004, the high-protein flour successfully developed by this invention was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology as a National Key Science and Technology Achievement Promotion Plan Project (2004EC112). In 2005, the patented product of this project (ZL99113106.1), high-protein flour, was approved by the Public Nutrition and Development Center as a Nutrition and Health Advocacy Product.
2. Benefit analysis of the new functional components of soybeans
In the field of soybean processing, it is generally believed at home and abroad that irreversible heat-induced excessive denaturation causes high-temperature soybean meal to lose its processing functionality and that it can only be used as feed. The independent innovation invention patent of this project adopts separation and extraction of non-protein components from high-temperature soybean meal, reverse retention and biological enzymatic hydrolysis of excessively denatured protein, and comprehensively extracts all components beneficial to humans from high-temperature soybean meal. The COD value of production discharge water is not higher than 25 mg/L, and it is recycled for production, greatly reducing costs. Because of separate extraction, the adverse effect of different components mixing with each other and reducing purity is avoided, thereby significantly improving product purity. Because of continuous extraction in this project, the product variety is greater than the number of varieties produced by other production processes. Because the comprehensive yield is improved, after unit raw material soybean meal is processed by this invention patent technology, the comparable comprehensive benefit is greatly improved. Taking the processing of 1 t of high-temperature soybean meal as an example, more than 20,000 yuan in new profits and taxes can be added. Even if benefits fluctuate, at a fluctuation coefficient of 50%, the processing profit and tax per 1 t of soybean meal is still more than 10,000 yuan, and the new functional components of soybeans produced by this project have no toxic or side effects. Today, when all humanity generally pursues naturalness, health, beauty, and longevity, the new functional components of soybeans will have a broad market. The high-purity, low-cost soybean processed products produced by this project will play a positive role in promoting the comprehensive revitalization of China's soybean processing industry and in increasing foreign exchange earnings oriented toward the world.
On the premise of not affecting the demand of China's feed industry for high-temperature soybean meal, adopting independent innovation high technology to deeply process China's resource-rich high-temperature soybean meal can greatly increase added value, shorten the period for the oil processing industry to turn losses into profits, and drive the development of the soybean industry.
Inventions such as methods for extracting protein, short peptides, nucleic acids, isoflavones, saponins, and oligosaccharides from high- and low-temperature soybean meal, and methods for extracting composite soybean functional factors from high- or low-temperature soybean meal, have the characteristic of high added value. Soybean processing is the leader that drives the development of the soybean industry. Processing generates high benefits, and high benefits inevitably stimulate major development of the soybean industry. Raw material soybean cultivation is the first workshop of soybean processing. After transformation according to the content of the National Key Science and Technology Achievement Promotion Plan, all soybean processing industries adopting this invention patent should, in the form of orders, implement order agriculture with specialized raw material soybean producers, and appropriately transfer part of the new profits of the soybean processing industry to specialized raw material soybean producers through high quality at a high price and industry giving back to agriculture. Although soybean processing enterprises transfer profits to soybean farmers, because the independent innovation invention patent technology has high added value, it does not constitute a new burden on processing enterprises, while for farmers it is a significant increase in income. This is equivalent to relying on independent innovation high technology to increase soybean farmers' income without increasing cultivated land or increasing agricultural input, achieving a win-win situation for soybean processing enterprises and raw material soybean growing farmers. Independent innovation high technology for soybean processing will play a positive and practical role in helping farmers rapidly become wealthy and shortening the period for China to solve the "three rural issues."