These activities include school nutrition fairs (in Delhi and Jaipur), and Soy-in-Cuisine (in Hyderabad and Indore), and a short course in dairy applications for soy and a soy food marketing seminar in Indore. The focus of these activities is to sensitise various stakeholders (including soy food manufacturers, academicians, dieticians, chefs and soybean processors) on nutrition and soybean utilisation.
Soybean is one of the very few plants that provide a high quality protein with minimum saturated fat. Soybeans help people feel better and live longer with an enhanced quality of life. Soybeans contain all the three macronutrients required for good nutrition, as well as fibre, vitamins and minerals. Almost one-third of India's population lives below the poverty line, and the middle class and upper middle class, who make up another one-third, suffer from different health problems. India has the dubious distinction of having highest number of heart patients (about 3 crore) and diabetics (about 5 crore) in the world. It has been estimated that India spends more than Rs 1 lakh crore on healthcare management annually. Numerous studies on soybean, including epidemiological studies, have been shown to improve the health status of people who consume soybean and soy protein. Soybean and soy protein are found to be very beneficial in managing diet-related degenerative diseases such heart diseases, cancer, diabetes, etc. Studies conducted at leading health institutes in India have shown that soybean and soy protein consumption can significantly reduce cholesterol levels and improve the heart health, as well as manage blood sugar levels in diabetic patients.
Soy products such as soybeans, soya bari, soymilk, soy flour, etc., have a tremendous role to play in improving the nutritional and health scenario of Indian society. Also these products, which are highly economical with an exceptionally good quality protein, are found to alleviate the malnutrition in the at-risk population of the country.
At the Soy-in-Cuisine programme, the organisers demonstrated better tasting soy food products to the chefs from hotels and Mid-Day-Meal programme implementing agencies. This training and demonstration would certainly help the participants in cooking tasty soy food products and improve the acceptability.
At the soy food marketing seminar, speakers from India and the USA spoke on various soy food activities.
Bridget Owen, associate director, NSRL, spoke on the role of soy in school feeding programmes around the world. This will help the Indian soy industry to introduce soy food products in the feeding programmes in India. India has the largest feeding programme in the world, feeding more than 20 crore malnourished people, including children, pregnant ladies, lactating mothers and school-going children.
Successful inclusion of soy products in these programmes would certainly improve the nutritional status of the Indian population.
Greg Paul, director, global marketing and strategy, DuPont/Solae, spoke on the importance of soy protein isolate in improving the performance and endurance of sports personnel. India, being a predominantly vegetarian population, has an issue with getting good quality protein to compete in professional and recreational sports. Soy protein, being a vegetarian protein, has quality equal to milk and eggs. This topic will certainly help the participants in better utilising the soy protein to improve the sports performance.
Pradip Chakraborty, director (product approval), Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) discussed the soy food industry's adherence to new FSSAI guidelines. With the new food safety guidelines being implemented by the Government of India, this session was of utmost importance to the industry to comply with the regulations to provide safe processed food to the consumers.
The Dairy Applications for Soy programme, was conducted with support from the Directorate of Soybean Research, Indore. At this programme, the organisers demonstrated various dairy alternates from soymilk. Demonstration of products like soy paneer, soy ice cream, soy yogurt (dahi) and traditional sweets will help the industry to introduce these products in the market as an economic and healthy alternative to milk. Even though India is the world largest milk producer, there is gap in the per capita availability of dairy milk. Introduction of products like this would certainly help in bridging the gap and making these products available to people who have issues with digestibility of milk (lactose intolerance).
