Soy Sauce

[svjetlonosa]

I'm checking out the Eden line and if that flunks I'm giving up all hope. Thanks all for info

Don't give up all hope!!! It does get tiring though, realizing that so very little processed food is actually good for you... but that's why we have a recipe section! :)

That's a spirit. Thank you Anart.

 

[Kaigen]

Hmm. I read this topic, and I wonder about the soy sauce. In Japan we use it everyday, since hundreds of years even longer.
I eat it and my family too. Japanese people have long life with soy sauce. Is this different soy sauce? I don't get it. Sorry.

 

[beetlemaniac]

Hmm. I read this topic, and I wonder about the soy sauce. In Japan we use it everyday, since hundreds of years even longer.
I eat it and my family too. Japanese people have long life with soy sauce. Is this different soy sauce? I don't get it. Sorry.

I'm thinking that quality of the product is related to it's effect on health. Japanese people must have higher expectations for their soy sauce and that would naturally mean better quality.

http://www.clearspring.co.uk/japanese/seasonings/foodquality

In the link above, different brewing methods are mentioned:

• 
  Traditional Craft-Made Soya Sauce
• Naturally Brewed Soya Sauce
• Non-Brewed Soya Sauce

With the last one probably being the equivalent of liquid MSG. Additionally, shoyu is made of soy and wheat, while tamari is from soy alone.

Their so-called 'Craft-Made' soy sauce goes through some lengthy brewing which they say results increased digestibility.
From what I have read, fermentation does to make soy more acceptable to our bodies, like tempeh, and maybe miso.

The only problem is glutamic acid, which is the main flavor component and an excitotoxin when ingested in certain quantities.

A paper on "practical" (read: cheaper & faster) soy sauce production has the following abstract:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleListURL&_method=list&_ArticleListID=1673077989&_sort=v&_st=17&view=c&_origin=related_art&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3bb9f9d3438d04f54f97dbfbd866dfa8&searchtype=a
In order to produce raw soy sauce, a mixed culture of 3,600 kg defatted soybean, 3,600 kg wheat grain, and 3.8 kg mixed tane-koji was prepared with Aspergillus oryzae K2 (length of conidiophores, about 350 μm) and a late-conidiating strain, A. oryzae HG (length of conidiophores, about 2,500 μm). The resulting mixed culture showed high glutaminase activity (5.5 units/g dry koji) compared with a monoculture of strain K2 (1.8 units/g dry koji). In addition, the number of conidia contained in the mixed culture (2.5 × 107/g dry koji) drastically decreased compared with those in the monoculture of strain K2 (1.3×108/g dry koji), thus resolving the serious problem of conidia dust contaminating the working environment during the koji-making process. The mixed culture was then combined with 13,000 l of 23% NaCl solution and fermented for 180 d. The glutamic acid content of the raw soy sauce made with mixed culture was 1.25 times higher than that of the raw of soy sauce made by the conventional soy sauce making process.

So doing it the quick and easy way results in more glutamic acid. Thus I'd think that higher quality soy sauce would be safer, and possibly safe enough to consume daily without any noticeable effects. But this is just a wild guess based on little data.

 

[Mountain Crown]

Another thing to keep in mind is that soybeans are one of the largest GMO crops.

My understanding is that nearly all that’s available is GMO.