MORE ON THE QUALITY OF TEKMASH^® SOY PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY

*⁾ End product quality is defined, above all, by its safety, nutritive value and assimilability in the organism.

Of course, any technology can be analyzed from various perspectives, e.g. considering its economy and energy consumption factors, end product quality, depth of raw material processing, etc. It is widely known, that simultaneous improvement of all these factors is virtually impossible.

Thus, if we buy the same product in a developed country and in an economically challenged one, the reality is that we get two totally different products, varying both in price and in quality. Naturally, the lower the quality, the cheaper the product...

It is not a secret that this is the reason why hazardous production is moved away from developed countries to third world nations. Thus, the economy of these developing countries improves and the price for that is environment pollution.

The price for the high quality of soy milk produced by “soy cows” is high energy consumption. A long series of similar examples has one thing in common: where one of the factors is improved, this happens at the expense of all the others.

If we were to draw a diagram of the four main characteristics of any production technology (regardless of their quantitative values), we would present the classic technology with equal circle segments, according to the established tradition.

Here is a possible option of this technology, where the cost is reduced (or the economy factor is improved) at the expense of downgrading all other factors (energy consumption, environment, quality).

The diagram below represents improving energy and economy factors at the expense of downgrading the environment factor and the product quality.

Analyzing existing soy processing technologies from this perspective, with the introduction of another factor, the depth of processing, one can visualize the quality and advantages of the suggested processing method. For this purpose, let us take as a standard the processing technology utilized by “sow cows” of Chinese or Canadian design.

Under this technology, soy beans are rinsed and soaked in water (usually the water is changed several times). After this they are ground, mixed with water and heated by steam to near-boiling temperature. Quality soy milk and sediment is obtained as a result of this process. These food products are popular all over the world, and equipment units named “soy cows” are also widely spread.

The process of soy milk production is characterized by high energy consumption (around 1.14 kW*hour per 1 lb of soy beans).
The depth of processing in this case reaches 80...90%, mainly due to washing of water-soluble content of proteins, starch and sugars (a number of soy milk production technologies use additional preliminary beans shelling). The high content of organic substances in waste waters of the processing enterprises causes significant environment pollution. That is why expensive water treatment is mandatory.
The presently popular infrared (IR) method of soy seeds processing with further grinding in colloidal mill is characterized by a relatively low electric energy consumption rate (0.32-0.45 kW*hour per 1 lb of soy beans) and relatively high savings factor at the expense of quality loss of the end product caused by partial burning and caramelization of carbohydrates, fats and, especially sugars, which leads to formation of hazardous products of thermal oxidization.
In this case the depth of processing reaches 85...90% due to partial loss of the product.

The process of soy milk production is characterized by high energy consumption (around 1.14 kW*hour per 1 lb of soy beans).

The depth of processing in this case reaches 80...90%, mainly due to washing of water-soluble content of proteins, starch and sugars (a number of soy milk production technologies use additional preliminary beans shelling). The high content of organic substances in waste waters of the processing enterprises causes significant environment pollution. That is why expensive water treatment is mandatory.

The presently popular infrared (IR) method of soy seeds processing with further grinding in colloidal mill is characterized by a relatively low electric energy consumption rate (0.32-0.45 kW*hour per 1 lb of soy beans) and relatively high savings factor at the expense of quality loss of the end product caused by partial burning and caramelization of carbohydrates, fats and, especially sugars, which leads to formation of hazardous products of thermal oxidization.

In this case the depth of processing reaches 85...90% due to partial loss of the product.

For better visualization, the specified tendencies of economy and energy factors improvement at the expense of the downgrading of the other three ones, which is peculiar for IR processing method, are illustrated in the following diagram.

The most widely spread soy processing technology used all over the world is implemented through high pressure created by the extruder in the processed medium. The soy beans temperature exceeds 212°F (100°C), which leads to neutralization of several harmful compounds contained in soy. However, at the same time, a greater part of fats is lost due to high pressure, and the obtained soy cake loses vitamins. Moreover, exposed to air, it also quickly loses unique polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Here we have a very economic process due to low energy consumption and no environment pollution alongside with a significant quality loss of the end product.

The specified growth and decline tendencies of the processing technology characteristics are illustrated by the diagram below.

The industrial technology for soy flour production (obtained by dehydration and isolation) is used for food purposes. In this case oil is preliminary extracted from soy beans. The oil is extracted by hexane, a hazardous chemical compound, which traces can be found in the end product. Of course, this process cannot be referred to environment friendly ones, however, at high production volumes, considering the value of the end product - fat-free dry powder, concentrate or isolate, it can be considered highly profitable.

It should be mentioned that the so called "dry" processing technologies, where no water is used, clearly have the tendency of a poorer quality of the end product and a better energy consumption rate (i.e. a higher economy factor) comparing to the “wet” technology, for example the one using a “soy cow”.

This situation can easily be explained, taking into consideration the fact that soy beans contain a number of biologically and chemically active compounds, which are immediately oxidized in the air by oxygen (the soy grade is determined by the number of broken beans). A broken bean shell causes fast oxidization and fats rancidity.

At the same time, we need to point out that the “wet” soy beans processing technology has the energy factor disadvantage due to high thermal capacity of the heated liquid and low concentration of soy beans.

This discrepancy prompts the idea of combining the advantages of the “wet” and the “dry” processing technologies. Thus, a highly concentrated mixture of soy and water can be processed in a hydro module with no exposure to the outside air. In this sense, TEKMASH^® hydrodynamic processing technology can be viewed as a certain compromise, combining the advantages of the “wet” and the “dry” technologies.

TEKMASH^® technology is characterized by a relatively low energy consumption (0.23-0.27 kW*hour per 1 lb of soy beans), absolutely no environment pollution, 100% processing depth and retaining almost 100% of all nutritive components contained in natural soy, which together with the simplicity of the technical implementation leads to high economy factor of the suggested technology. The tendency of improvement of all the factors:

The above mentioned arguments give grounds to believe that the simultaneous improvement of all specified characteristics in TEKMASH^® processing technology has the world-wide novelty confirmed by a number of international patent applications.

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