Is hydrolyzed soy protein really all-natural and is it good for you?
What’s in your food continues with hydrolyzed soy protein. It seems to be in a lot of foods. Why is it there and what does it do? Soy gets a lot of heat. Is it justified? Is it the complete source of protein many vegans and vegetarians claim?
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Hydrolyzed soy protein doesn’t even sound good.
No doubt the term hydrolyzed means a specific thing. Do you know what that process is? It might sound familiar. Hydrogenated as if adding hydrogen atoms to fats. Maybe it sounds like hydrolysis, separating water into hydrogen and oxygen.
According to the Livestrong website, “Hydrolysis of proteins breaks down large protein molecules into their smaller, constituent amino acids.” Okay. There are a few things glossed over there. Breaks down large protein. How, exactly? It’s a chemical reaction involving hydrochloric acid, and water because hydrolysis is water-based, nitrogen, a microwave for heat, about 200 degrees, and time, between 5 and 30 minutes according to the LibreTexts chemistry website. That page has an egghead explanation of the process and even the chemical symbol is written out, but honestly, it’s beyond me.
Into their constituent amino acids, I get.
The Livestrong page continues to say the chemical reaction breaks the peptide bonds. What are those?
Khan Academy offers what was the simplest explanation that “Peptide bonds are the vital links that connect amino acids to form polypeptide chains, which fold into functional proteins.” Every explanation I looked at before I found this was very sciency. Not that there’s anything wrong with the sciencey answer, but I won’t understand what I’m saying and this isn’t that show.
So, soy protein is put in hydrochloric acid and is in the presence of nitrogen microwaved to 200 degrees for 5 to 30 minutes. During that process, water is one product that is created. Hydrolysis is the chemical breaking down of things, something that has a chemical bond, into the parts that made the thing.
The Titan Biotech website offers that the hydrolyzed soy proteins “are similar to other proteins in animal tissues such as meat and fish. Still, they do not have the same nutritional value as meat and fish proteins because they lack essential amino acids such as lysine and methionine.”
Just like that, we’re in the deep end of the pool. Vegans almost demand that plants can give all the nutrition they need to thrive. Skeptics disagree. There is a group of amino acids called essential because the body requires them for efficient operation and their absence impairs a properly functioning body.
As a protein, we now see one big reason such items are added to vegetarian and vegan foods. I mentioned earlier that hydrolyzed plant protein is a processed ingredient. I did read at least on one webpage they called it all natural.
I have not covered that term on this show but the term all-natural as a selling point is meaningless. Labeling laws in the US are something of a joke. Yes, the ingredients need to be listed in order of prominence which is nice. Country of origin labeling is a flat-out lie and terms such as organic and all-natural convey emotional comfort but no actual information. There are more than a few things you can think of that are all-natural and organic and never in a thousand years would you choose to eat any of the very many things you can imagine.
Calling something created in a chemical bath all-natural seems to obfuscate the issue, but let’s get back to the protein.
You might be getting ahead by thinking if they can do that to soy, they can do that to corn or peanuts or wheat and you are correct. They do that to all those plants. I bashed to food labeling laws just a minute ago. To their credit, calling hydrolyzed soy protein hydrolyzed plant protein is insufficient since the source of the protein isn’t identified. That probably is more for allergies than not, but knowing is good.
When soy is processed this way it produces 8 essential amino acids and 1 other amino acid.
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and are vital to the various biological functions of the body including giving the body fuel, building muscle and repairing muscle, enhancing the immune system, working with hormones, and more.
I mentioned essential amino acids. There are 9 of them and 11 inessential amino acids. The term may lead to a wrong conclusion. Those 9 are called essential because the body cannot make them. They are as important as the other 11 and must be obtained from external sources, which means food or supplements.
As a protein goes, soy is pretty good.
Soy also has come under fire for some drawbacks, and hydrolyzed soy protein also has some drawbacks.
One big issue is MSG. Glutamic acid combines with sodium in the processing and forms MSG. MSG is naturally occurring, particularly in mushrooms.
MSG is a flavor enhancer and for this reason, hydrolyzed soy protein is also used to boost flavor in vegan and vegetarian dishes.
The source of this episode was the inclusion of hydrolyzed soy protein in a packet of food I bought for a project I’m working on. I bought a bag of dehydrated potatoes for mashed potatoes. The ingredient list, which is alarmingly long for roasted garlic mashed potatoes, includes 18 ingredients, at least half of which I can hardly pronounce and have no idea what they are.
The Titan Biotech website offers this list of other places hydrolyzed soy protein might be found. They write, “meat products, soups, gravies, sauces, baked goods, desserts, snack foods, candy bars, chewing gum, and beverages.”
Missing from that list are the cosmetic uses for hydrolyzed soy protein. Hair products are popular places to find it as well as in skin creams. Also missing are infant formulas.
Another issue is isoflavones. This can, allegedly, be the source of the so-called man boobs, or Moobs, which can be a side effect of too much soy.
Now, to be clear, I did not find a smoking gun about Moobs. I’m also savvy enough to recognize that anything in health and nutrition that violates mainstream thinking is deemed misinformation and simply removed if it ever was published in the first place. The sites that agree there’s no evidence to support Moobs are all the approved voices of the approved opinion.
Those isoflavones also have a cosmetic use as I just mentioned. The website Ingredients to Die For writes, “Isoflavones appear to protect the skin against hormone-related aging, such as in menopause. And isoflavones can have estrogenic activity, for instance, if during menopause the body’s natural level of estrogen drops, isoflavones can compensate by binding to the same receptor sites. As we age, our hormone levels drop and our skin, the biggest organ, shows the results. Hydrolyzed Soy Protein helps bring back a youthful radiance in skin care.”
As a food, the main concern with hydrolyzed soy protein seems to be the MSG exposure and the allergies to soy in general. Atlasbars.com offers this about the possible risks of hydrolyzed soy protein, “Hydrolyzed corn and soy protein can cause digestive problems, particularly if consumed in large quantities. Research has shown that they can lead to intestinal inflammation, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis.” They did not include a link to any research so I don’t know what they’re referring to. The site also mentions that soy and corn could be genetically modified and that has been a big concern for some while.
It seems that hydrolyzed soy protein is more benign than harmful. I remain skeptical. Atlas does offer some ideas for replacements of hydrolyzed soy protein. Yeast extracts or vegetable or mushroom broth. No doubt the cost factor of hydrolyzed soy protein is cheaper than alternatives which could be one big reason it’s so predominant.
Just like seed oils and sugar, hydrolyzed soy, or vegetable, protein is probably hard to avoid. Avoiding it means at least reading every ingredient label. It also means possibly paying more for already expensive groceries to buy products using alternatives. Of course, cook at home and make as much from scratch as possible. As I said at the opening, even in a commercial kitchen where from scratch was the selling point, making ketchup and mayonnaise and vinegar and other staples from scratch is not practical or affordable. One thing the canned products have mastered is consistency. Hellmann’s mayonnaise is always the same, even when it’s called Best Brand.
Avoiding sugar and seed oils is hard enough. Avoiding soy products is at least possible when you cook whole foods at home. Making your own mayo is doable. Making your own ketchup is possible in the technical sense, but in any practical sense, it is not doable. There is not, it seems, a panacea. Pick and choose what you buy and what you eat. That’s been the best eating advice for hundreds of years.