The next phase of the plant revolution will emphasize the engineering of desirable traits in plants, traits that will mainly benefit the consumer. Pierce said, for example, that after a long series of chemical studies in the United States it was shown that a diet containing soy from soybeans produces a substantial decrease in total cholesterol in humans.
People have to take medicines to try to control their cholesterol levels.
Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permitted a health claim to be placed on soy products indicating the beneficial effects of an increased soy diet on cardiovascular health. Many people don't like the bitter taste of soybeans. They also have antinutritional components in them. But the selection of superior strains and conventional breeding has led to development of soybeans that have a high concentration of sucrose, and at the same time are very low in antinutritional components such as oligosaccharides and galactose. And now you can take these soybeans and use them in a variety of products - in soy milks, in cereals, in any number of normal, mainstream products that people can consume and get the benefits that are inherent in a soy diet.