There are no silly questions.
Nutrition is very confusing, especially due to all the misinformation spread by food companies, advertisers, marketers, the media, quacks and well meaning and good intentioned, but misinformed, people giving out health and nutrition advice.
Soy protein is the protein that naturally occurs in the soybean.
Soybeans contain protein, fat, carbohydrate along with many nutrients and is about 60% protein by weight.
When looking at calories, a pound of soybeans are 667 calories and about 30% of those calories, or about 240 calories, come from the protein.
When manufacturers extract this protein from the soybean and purify it, the resulting product is called "isolated soy protein." It is a highly refined and purified form of soy protein that is made from defatted soy flour which has had most of the non-protein components, fats and carbohydrates removed. The resulting product has a minimum protein content of 90% on a dry basis.
This isolated soy protein is then sold as soy protein, or mixed in with other foods to make some soy based meat substitutes (soy burgers, etc) and is also used in foods to raise the protein content.
You can read my comments on soy here
http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5600
In Health
Jeff Novick, MS, RD
by figpiglet » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:33 pm 
