5/8/05 (RedNova) - Soybean farmers are battling to keep their marketdominance in cooking oils with a new generation of plants that don'tproduce the transfats that are linked to heart disease.

But competitors are pushing the food industry to replace soybeans withhealthier fats from canola oils or cheaper tropical fats from palm oilor to make a dramatic reduction in fats in processed foods using azero-calorie gel made from corn bran.

The food industry is involved in one of the largest shifts ever inreformulating its products, thanks to a decision by the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration requiring manufacturers to state on food labels beginningnext January how much transfats are contained in their products. Nutritiongroups campaigned for the disclosure of transfats on labels.

Plant engineers say they have come up with new varieties of alteredsoybean plants that produce less of the oils responsible for transfats,while keeping the oils processors need.

"It's no easy task to transform a crop of this size," said Steve Poole,director of edible programs at the United Soybean Board, who noted thatU.S. farmers this year planted more than 75 million acres of soybeans.

In the last 50 years, the lowly soybean has become one of the engines ofAmerican agriculture. While soybeans are the main ingredient in animalfeeds, the oils have displaced cottonseed oil and animal fats like lard infood products. Economists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimatethat soybean oils are today used in about 88 percent of baking products,93 percent of spreads and 74 percent of salad oils.

But the downside of soybean oil is the presence of a small quantity oflinolenic acid, which is largely responsible for the transfats createdwhen soybean oil is hydrogenated to make it suitable for use in baking orfrying.

At a recent meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists, in NewOrleans, scientists said they have developed new soybean plants withlowered levels of linolenic acid that farmers are beginning to plant.

In southeast Iowa last year, 25 soybean farmers joined in a cooperativecalled Asoyia and planted 7,000 acres of a low-linolenic soybean thatagriculture scientists developed without using gene-splicing technologies.The group wants to plant 100,000 acres by 2007 and is aiming for thesegment of the market that doesn't want genetically modified soybeans.

With consumer demand for organic foods growing, "we think there's a verystrong market for non-GMO (genetically modified) products," said VivianJennings, chief executive officer for Asoyia.

Agribusiness giants DuPont, Monsanto and Bunge are also bringing to thefields alternative strains that have lowered levels of linolenic acid.

But competitors say that while the new generations of soybeans will resultin lower levels of transfats, soybean oil still will have high levels ofsaturated fats.

"They're going back 20 years," said Shelly Hiron of Canola Information, anorganization based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, that promotes thelow-saturated-fat qualities of canola oil. She said soybean oil gained itsfoothold as a replacement for high-saturated fats like palm oil, and shecontended plant engineers should have come up with soybeans with loweredsaturated-fat levels to be useful for today's food industry. Severalmedical studies have linked heart disease to diets high in saturated fats.

"Sorry, guys, you are going the wrong way," she said.

No-fat alternatives are also appearing on the market. AgricultureDepartment scientists have found a way to replace much of the fat in manyproducts by using a gel made from corn bran, which is now marketed by theMundelein, Ill., company FiberGel Technologies.

Phil Versten, spokesman for the company, said that while edible oils arefighting to retain their markets, FiberGel's Z-trim offers a no-fatalternative for baked goods, butters, gravies and processed products.Since the gel is made from cellulose, it also cuts calories and helps inthe government's fight against obesity.

Versten said the gel is not a replacement for frying oil because it burnswhen heated, but it is a no-calorie replacement for half the fatsprocessors use. "The zero-calorie option exists, which is a natural fiber,and can be used to replace a percentage of the oil used in food," he said.

(Contact Lance Gay at GayL(at)SHNS.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard NewsService, http://www.shns.com)