WORLD’S MOST WONDERFUL BEAN

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 72, 18 December 1937, Page 22

WORLD’S MOST WONDERFUL BEAN

The Things Made From The Soya

Did you know, asks Barbara L. Clark, an American writer, that one of the world’s most famous automobiles is partly made from beans? Other products in which brother bean has had a hand are glue, radios, buttons, explosives, linoleum, soap and soup—and its a Chinese bean too. A native of North China, the soya bean has been the cause of wars: a great railroad has been built because of it, while almond-eyed Mongolians have lived and died knowing no other staple food than this little hard beau. A seaman first took the bean to America in 180-1. At first it became a florieultural curiosity, for, like tomatoes, in the early days no one thought of eating it. Potted, it adorned thq homes of fashionable persons. Next, it went the way of carrots and other disdained vegetables and later became highly recommended as food for hu-mans—-it was thrown to the swine and cattle. Live stock fed on the vegetable grew swiftly to great proportions, but if it was the only article of food on their diet their flesh was found to be soft and flabby. Though Union soldiers in the Civil War bad been fed soya bean coffee, and the Government, through the Department of Agriculture, began as early as 1890 to see what could be done with it, very little attention was paid to it until Henry Ford started using it in his automobiles. Now, however, the plant is used for everything from baby food and medicines to steering wheels and paint. He is a large producer of soya beaus—l4.ooo acres in Michigan and 10,000 in Georgia. Like wheat and rye, the soya bean is quoted on the Stock Exchange. Outside of Asia soya beans are grown in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, England as well as in America, Mexico, and Canada. Agriculturally this bean is valuable as a powerful nitrogen-fixation agent. It is used as green manure, as pasture, and as forage. It is made into chicken feed and into big cakes as food for cattle. It is useful as hay and makes a valuable addition to corn for silage. As fertiliser it alkalizes acid soils, and is recommended as an asset in the rotation of crops.

One advantage as a farm crop is that since the soya bean takes only 60 to 1302 days to mature it can be planted after some earlier crop has WORLDS MOST WONDERFUL failed.

Commercially the soya beau has no end of uses. It is good for everything. Indeed, one of its earliest uses was as a medicine. It is useful in the making of products for invalid diet. The beans themselves, green or dried, can be served boiled or baked, or in soups or salads. Roasted, they can be used as coffee beans. Ground and prepared properly, they serve as a substitute for neanut butter, with a very similar taste.

For years the only commercial use for soya beans was soya sauce, for chop suey. It was the principal export use of the soya bean, and also formed the base of the famed Worcestershire sauce.

Later, however, someone discovered that Orientals had for a long time been using soya bean oil in the making of paints and varnishes. Its value in this regard lies in the fact that it has quick drying properties and is waterproof.

For this same reason it has attracted much attention as a water paint, made by combining it with caustic lime. As such, it is recommended for buildings, fences, garages, advertising boards. Because it is cheap and has great water resistance it is also excellent for use as a whitewash for danger signs and other road marks.

All the paint on the particular make of American motor-car is of bean oil, and 540,000 gallons of the oil went into the making of glycerine and shock absorbers for these cars in one year. Other products that go into the ears are gear shift knobs, distributor cases, window trim, insulation terminals, born buttons, and timing gears. One ton of soya beans yields 30 gallons of oil and 1600 pounds of meal. From one or both of these, industry makes glue, plywood, combs, radios, buttons, axle grease, explosives, linoleum, oilcloth, printers’ ink, billiard balls, synthetic rubber, fountain pens, cigarette holders. Christmas-tree ornaments, soft and hard soap and furniture, in addition to the food products, paints and automobile parts. Recently it has been discovered that iron and steel can be strengthened in one-tenth of the time by a new method which exposes the heated metal to a composition containing 90 per cent, of soya bean meal mixed with various salts.