Bakery managers from Bangladesh and Pakistan are discovering the benefits of soy protein during a “Baking with Soy” course on the NDSU campus. The weeklong class concludes June 20 at Northern Crops Institute in Fargo, N.D.
The World Initiative for Soy in Human Health is co-sponsoring the course. The initiative is an American Soybean Association program that brings the nutritional benefits of U.S. soy protein to people in developing countries. The trade-development organization is managed from association's world headquarters in St. Louis. Since U.S. soybean farmers founded World Initiative for Soy in Human Health in 2000, it has worked in 24 countries to improve diets and encourage the growth of food industries.
“The NCI soy baking courses continue to grow in popularity and we are delighted that customers using soy flour in their food products are requesting that we host the course again,” said institute director Mark Weber. “WISHH, along with the US Soybean Export Council and the regional state soybean councils, are our valuable partners in making the courses possible. The high nutritional aspects of soy flour are helping to improve human dietary needs in developing countries of the world and its use in baking products continues to increase.”
This course highlights the use of soy ingredients in baking applications by elaborating physical dough properties, baked product quality and technical specifications of soy ingredients. Different types of breads and other bakery products are demonstrated to highlight various functional properties of adding soy.
John Crabtree, Northern Crops Institute assistant director, is coordinating the course. Lecturers include Rachel Carlson and Natsuki Fujiwara, food technologists; and Thunyaporn Naggie Jeradechachai, crop quality specialist.
Soybeans have great potential for human food use because of their high level of protein and their functional and nutritional properties. One of the most promising uses of soybeans is in bakery products. For example, the addition of soy flour to bread products can raise protein content, balance essential amino acids, and increase bread’s nutritional value.
With 187 million people, Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world. Pakistan’s government has already committed to reducing the ‘protein gap’ in diets, so U.S. soy has an enormous opportunity as both food and feed in Pakistan.
Bangladesh is home to 150 million people, making it the eighth most populous country in the world. Bangladesh has a $16 billion food retailing sector, and retailing is growing at about 7 percent per year due to both economic growth and urbanization, according to the USDA.
The Northern Crops Institute supports regional agriculture and value-added processing by conducting educational and technical programs that expand and maintain domestic and international markets for northern-grown crops. The institute is funded by the states of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota and commodity groups in those states and Montana.