INFORM October 2024

22 • inform October 2024, Vol. 35 (9)

pensable amino acids that meal from China and Argentina. A 2020 study indicated that meal from Brazil contained more total energy (digestible and metabolizable) than meal from China or the US. The following year, a separate research group published a paper concluding that US soybean meal quality was better than Brazilian meal, based on the nutrient values they studied. To quantify the relationship between the country of origin and SBM, our team used meta-analysis to evaluate the results of these previous studies. Our review paper includes a compar ison of the chemical composition, nutritional value, minerals and amino acid composition from approximately 240 samples reported in the results section of recently published papers. Overall, the meta-analysis showed that soluble protein, sucrose, and stachyose were higher in the US soybean meal samples than meal from Brazil (Table 1). On the other hand, raffinose was lower in the soybean samples from the US. Past analysis by another research team confirmed that raffinose levels were higher in meal from Brazil and India compared to those from Argentina and the US. The analysis also showed that soybeans from Brazil had more iron, zinc and magnesium than meal from the US which contains more calcium and potassium. Consistent with pre

vious reports, there is more fiber and protein in Brazilian meal and US soybeans have higher levels of the amino acid methionine. OIL QUALITY Our team collected a total of 557 crude degummed soybean oil samples from vessels and crushers in two destination coun tries (India and South Korea) and analyzed them for quality fac tors, such as color, free fatty acid content, neutral oil loss, and iodine value (Figure 1). We measured a minimal difference in Lovibond red color among the oil samples with larger differences between ship ment years than among the soybeans’ origin. The FFA levels were consistently higher in oil derived from Brazilian soybeans and significantly lower in the US produced soybeans, with lev els from Argentine soybeans intermediate and most variable. The free fatty acid (FFA) levels were consistently higher in oil derived from Brazilian soybeans and significantly lower in the US produced soybeans. Argentine soybeans FFA levels measured between the two other countries and had the most variability. Neutral oil loss (NOL) was also consistently higher in oil derived from Brazilian soybeans and significantly lower in the US produced soybeans, with levels from Argentine soybeans at

A

B

C

Free Fatty Acids (FFA), %

Neutral Oil Loss (NOL), %

Iodine Value

0.5

1.0

1.5

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

122

124

126

128

130

132

134

Argentina India Vessel

Brazil Korea Crusher

USA India Vessel

USA South Korea Crusher

USA South Korea Vessel

All Parts Tukey-Kramer 0.05

Figure 1. An example of the data resulting from the oil analysis of 2020-21 shipments, including (A) free fatty acids, (B) neutral oil loss, and (C) iodine values.