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Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] is an annual plant of the legume family that is ancestral to the Glycine bean (Glycine soja Sieb. & Zucc.). Soybeans are a key component of "Japanese cuisine," which has been registered as a UNESCO Heritage of Intangible Differentiation and has become an essential part of the Japanese diet. Despite being an important crop in Japan's food culture, the self-sufficiency rate of Japan's domestically produced soybean crop has declined considerably to ~24 % for use in food products and ~6% for combined nonfood uses. Although domestic consumption of processed soybean products such as tofu has been increasing annually, imported soybeans have been used as raw materials. From the food security perspective, improving the self-sufficiency rate by promoting the development of soybean varieties that are internationally competitive and of superior quality is a prominent issue. Therefore, the Soybean Subcommittee of the 70th Anniversary Meeting of the Japanese Society for Food Science and Technology invited Dr. Yohei Nanjo of the Crops Research Division of the National Institute of Agrobiological Science in 2023 to give a presentation on the current state of soybean breeding and its future outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the Small Research-Discussion on Cereal Grains in the annual meeting of the Japanese Society for Food Science and Technology in 2023, Dr. Tomoyuki Narisawa (Saitama Industrial Technology Center Northern Laboratory) gave a lecture entitled " What is the flavor of local flour in white salted noodle? :-Focusing on wheat from Saitama Prefecture-". They discovered a mechanism that lipoxygenase (LOX), an enzyme present in wheat flour dough, oxidizes unsaturated fatty acids to generate linear aldehydes (for examples: hexanol, heptenal, nonenal) and ketones, which express the unique flavor of local flour. In particular, it was confirmed that Norin 61 had significantly high LOX activity in the dough. Thus, the flavor of local flour in udon (white salted noodle) is thought to be caused by the oxidized odor resulting from the oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids caused by high LOX activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Home Economics of Japan is the property of Japan Society of Home Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Home Economics of Japan is the property of Japan Society of Home Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The official specifications for food additives from natural sources list the species according to their scientific and Japanese names, thereby providing a unique identifier for the species. This helps to prevent the use of nonprescribed species, which might cause unexpected or unintended health hazards. However, there are cases in which the names of the source species listed in the official specifications differ from the accepted scientific names based on the latest taxonomic research. In this paper, we argue that it is more important to define scientific and Japanese names with an emphasis on traceability in order to control the range of food additive ingredients in a rational and sustainable manner. Therefore, we proposed a method for ensuring traceability as well as a specific notation procedure for scientific and Japanese names. Using this method, we examined the source species for three food additives. In some cases, the range of sources species expanded with the change in scientific names. Ensuring traceability is extremely important, but it is also necessary to confirm whether unexpected species are included when names are changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soybeans are rich in proteins and lipids and are often called "meat of the field." Green soybeans, which are immature soybeans, are also highly nutritious and contain high levels of carotene and vitamin C. In Japan, green soybeans used to be harvested and consumed from May to November; however, with the development of freezing and storage technologies, they are now available throughout the year. Globally, there has been an increase in the consumption of the green soybean food, edamame, which originated in Japan, along with tofu and soy sauce. Currently, there are more than 400 unique green soybean varieties in Japan; nonetheless, studies investigating the components that determine green soybean palatability at the genetic level are scarce. During the Soybean Research Session of the 69th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Food Science and Technology in 2022, the results and future prospects of the present study were presented by Dr. Tomoki Hoshino from Laboratory of Crop Breeding, Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Yamagata University, who is currently developing new varieties of green soybean cultivars by analyzing the genes that determine consumer palatability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the "Small Research-Discussion on Cereal Grains" in the annual meeting of the Japanese Society for Food Science and Technology in 2022, Dr. Fumi Hayashi (associate professor of the Faculty of Nutrition, Kagawa Nutrition University) gave a lecture entitled "Eating a combination of grain dishes, fish and meat dishes, and vegetable dishes: The basic principle of sustainable healthy diets." The lecture content suggested that 1) a wellbalanced diet that follows the Dietary Balance Guide reduces mortality, 2) prolonged restriction of grain intake can have adverse effects on health, 3) consuming low-refined cereal can make diets healthier, and 4) choosing plant-based foods can promote healthy diets with low environmental impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]