Jumat, 18 Januari 2008

Soya (Sejarah Kedelai)

According to the ancient Chinese, in 2853 BC the legendary Emperor Shennong of China named five sacred plants – soybeans, rice, wheat, barley, and millet.[6] The origins of the soybean plant are obscure, but many botanists believe it to have derived from glycine ussuriensis, a legume native to central China.[7] The soybean has been used in China for 5,000 years as a food and a component of medicines. Cultivation of the soybean, long confined chiefly to China, gradually spread to other countries.[8]

According to other sources, the earliest preserved soybeans were unearthed from archaeological sites in Korea[9][10]. AMS radiocarbon dating on soybean recovered through flotation during excavations at the Early Mumun Period Okbang site in Korea indicates that soybean was cultivated as a food crop in ca. 1000–900 BC. [11]. The best current evidence on the Japanese Archipelago suggests that soybean cultivation occurred in the early Yayoi period.

From about the first century AD to the Age of Discovery (15-16th century), soybeans were introduced into several countries such as Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, Nepal and India. The spread of the soybean was due to the establishment of sea and land trade routes. The earliest Japanese textual reference to the soybean is in the classic Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) which was completed in 712 AD.

During World War II, soybeans became important in both North America and Europe chiefly as substitutes for other protein foods and as a source of edible oil. In the United States they are now a leading crop, and Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay also are significant soybean-exporting nations.

Many people have claimed that soybeans in Asia, prior to modern times, were only used after a fermentation process, which alters the high increase in phytoestrogens found in the raw plant. However, this appears to be incorrect: Terms similar to "soy milk" have been in use since 82 AD [2], and there is evidence of tofu consumption that dates to 220.[3]

The genus name Glycine was originally introduced by Linnaeus(1737) in his first edition of Genera Plantarum. The word glycine is derived from the Greek-glykys(sweet)- and very likely refers to the sweetness of the pear-shaped(apios in Greek) edible tubers produced by the native North American twining or climbing herbaceous legume, Glycine apios, now known as Apios americana . Some alternative names are: ground nut, American potato bean, wild bean, Indian potato, ground bean, hopniss, and sea vines. The seeds are also edible. It saved the Massachusetts Bay Pilgrims from starvation.[12] The cultivated soybean first appeared in theSpecies Plantarum, Linnaeus, under the name Phaseolus max L. The combination, Glycine max(L.) Merr., as proposed by Merrill in 1917, has become the valid name for this useful plant.

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