Research on the deliciousness of processed soybean current state and future prospects of soybean breeding "EDAMAME"

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.