The Soy Paradox: The Western Nutrition Transition Revisited, 1950-2010

Global Environment

Global

The article addresses the Western nutrition transition from the mid-twentieth century onwards through the lens of soy. The soybean and its products have mostly been neglected in accounts of the nutrition transition. If anything, the soybean appears as an antagonist of the nutrition transition. The article argues that soy simultaneously played an opposite – though less obvious – role as a protagonist of the nutrition transition. As both antagonist and protagonist, soy’s role was quite paradoxical. Based on time-series and cross-section analyses of country-level data, the article sketches a more nuanced picture of dietary change in the past as a challenge of global society and its environment in the future.

LANGTHALER Ernst