Taking the wind out of soy milk drinkers

GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF IT: Waikato University Masters student Anila Rajan, pictured, with senior lecturer Dr Giridhar Raghavan Nair uses a continuous reactor to add peanut enzymes to soy milk.

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Research to reduce farting has begun at Waikato University in an effort to stamp out the embarrassing side-effect from soy milk.

Abdominal bloating, rumbling and flatulence are often experienced by lactose-intolerant people who turn to soy milk as an alternative to drinking dairy products. Vegetarians also consume a lot of soy milk.

Biochemical engineering Masters student Anila Rajan believes peanuts may hold the key to reducing the embarrassing social side-effect.

Miss Rajan said humans didn't have the enzyme needed to digest some of the complex sugars in soy milk.

While the flatulence problem was well known, the current methods to remove those flatulence-inducing sugars during the production process were expensive.

So Miss Rajan is examining the practicalities of using a peanut extract to manufacture soy milk in place of expensive enzymes.

Alpha-galactosidase is a naturally occurring enzyme found in peanuts.

"Peanuts cost about $6 a kilo, while pure enzymes that would remove the sugars cost around $1000 per milligram," she said.

Therefore, peanuts were a very cheap source of the enzyme required.

Miss Rajan's research was still in its early stages, but she said her results so far were encouraging.

Her supervisor, Department of Engineering senior lecturer Dr Giridhar Raghavan Nair, said the research had the potential to substantially increase the consumption of soy milk.

Soy milk had many health benefits. It was high in protein and also contained more fibre than cow's milk.

Dr Nair said there was already a gradual move toward soy milk.

"The only reason it hasn't really picked up is because of this flatulence problem."