Soy to the World

Hosted by the United Soybean Board and the Soyfoods Association of North America, the 15th Soy Symposium included company executives, soy bean farmers, policy influencers (including Dan Glickman former, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and Chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America), journalists (including Sally Squires, former medical and health writer for the Washington Post and Jia Lunn Yang, financial writer for the Washington Post), industry representatives, academics (including Brian Wansink, former Executive Director of the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion), chefs and former Olympic gold-medal gymnast, Dominique Dawes, who was the featured lunch speaker.

The event was billed as a conference to “examine how food companies are adapting to four primary forces—health, economics, global marketing and sustainability.” The take-away points from the discussion were primarily ideas and strategies to get more consumers eating more soy food products.

To the credit of conference organizers, attendees really did dine on soy foods, rather than salmon and shrimp as in previous conferences. The menu featured mini tacos made with TVP, tofu dip, beef and soy sausage, soy nut cookies, soy yogurt, soy milk, Caesar dressing made with soy milk, black soybean chili, and tofu chocolate almond mousse.

In his opening remarks, Dan Glickman shared the story about how he told the theatre industry to use soybean oil instead of coconut and palm oils in movie popcorn. He praised the “bridge builders” like Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern and Bob Dole, who ushered in mega-corporate farming and helped formulate the dietary guidelines, based on the products of commodity agriculture. He stressed the need for more of the same to feed the world’s growing population and lauded the soybean industry’s role in shaping “nutrition” policy, especially in public schools.

The keynote address by Brian Wansink, PhD set the context for discussion by clearly defining who the industry should and shouldn’t be focusing on with respect to soybean consumers. He gave as an example the success soymilk producers experienced by targeting lactose-intolerant consumers. He further discussed looking at a triangle representing all the people in the United States: At the top of the triangle are “soy-seekers.” These people love soy, look for soy in products and are huge champions. At the very bottom of the pyramid are the people who are “indifferent” to soy for whatever reason. It could be they don’t care, they are uninformed, or some other reason. The middle segment of the triangle represents the “nutrition pre-disposed”—not towards soy in particular, but towards healthy food in general. Wansink stated this is the segment the industry should focus on, as there is tremendous potential there. One of the problems in the industry, he said, is that people have focused too much on the top part of the pyramid and everyone is trying to get a piece of this tiny pie. The strategy for marketing to the pre-disposed segment is two-fold: Come up with a great idea that works for a lot of people (even if not all), and then after that find a ripple effect that works for others.

In a moment of honest revelation, Wansink spoke about the disappointment throughout the industry when highly anticipated health claims about the benefits of soy did not yield high sales for soy products, with the exception of soy milk. He suggested that the government promote soy products the way it promoted organ meats during World War II, as something good for you and good for the nation. He also suggested that marketing strategies target “nutritional gatekeepers,” that is chefs and family cooks interested in nutrition. Wansink further noted that as health claims failed to convince the population that soy was the magic bullet fifteen years ago, the opportunity for soy today is with the obesity challenge and the new dietary guidelines. Specifically, soy should be promoted as a solution to overweight by marketing it as a healthy substitute to meat and dairy products.

Other speakers discussed how soy products will help meet U.S. dietary guidelines, with its renewed emphasis on plant-based diets; noted that the soy industry is working on production of novel varieties of high oleic soybean oil low in saturated fat; stressed the marketing of soy as a complete protein, perfectly appropriate as the only protein source for infants, children and adults; promoted the use of “stealth health” as opposed to “muscling” in change to force dietary changes (that is, sneak soy into common food products); speculated on how to remove the allergens from soy; and figure out what to do about the fact that soy doesn’t actually taste very good.

One panelist was asked: “How do you counter negative data from wackos on the internet?” The answer: don’t add to the debate with more data because the “data is irrelevant.” People will believe what they want to believe regardless of truth. Effective marketing is the ultimate solution. The soy industry should “cultivate the root as opposed to fertilize the leaves” which means targeting children. The panelists agreed that Rachael Ray needs to eat a soy burger!

Interestingly, motivational speaker Dominique Dawes, a Silver Spring, Maryland native, confessed that as a child one of her favorite foods was chitterlings—which she ate by the plateful. It was one of many home-cooked “soul-food” dishes prepared by her mother. She also ate home-cooked foods during her career.

Thus the conference danced around the key problems with immensely profitable, highly fabricated soy foods—they are toxic and they taste terrible. A full report of the conference by a WAPF member, who attended and sat quietly in the back of the room, will be posted at the end of this article at westonaprice.org.

VEG@N: Alternative spelling of vegan. “Why do you spell it veg@n instead of vegan?” “Cuz it’s where it’s at. Veg@n looks so cool!”
TOFU FRIENDS: Friends who act like the people they are with. Bland nondescript friends who can change their flavor at will. “He’s a WAPFer at home but a tofu friend with the girls on campus.” SOY VEY : Expression used by people who get so frustrated trying to talk with their vegan friends that they throw up their hands and walk away. “Soy vey, Jack. Enough already.”
TURKEY IN TROUBLE: Game played on vegans attending Thanksgiving dinner, in which the cook hides a little squab or cornish hen along with stuffing in the turkey cavity. “We played ‘Turkey in Trouble’ on poor Chandra. She’d learned nothing about turkeys laying eggs at her ‘soy latte’ college and started screaming when she found we’d roasted a ‘pregnant’ turkey!”
SOY BEANS: Vegetable legume processed into tofu, tofurky, and other food-like products and marketed as a unique agent able to effect miracle cures. “So many claims are made for soybeans that you just want to bang your head against the wall while reading about them.”