The objective of this work was to determine trypsin inhibitory activity of soy products consumed by the general population, such as soy extract based beverages, and by special groups, such as new-born infant formulas, destined to milk sensitive children. Results showed that, excepting those products containing soy extracts, the other soy based products studied had a very low trypsin inhibitory activity, approximately 5% of the amount existing in defatted soy meal. Moreover, by means of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by trypsin inhibitor activity staining, it was demonstrated that in some cases the inhibition observed, using the colorimetric method of KAKADE, SIMONS & LIENER [8], was due to non-specific inhibition caused by other components present in the samples.
soy; commercial products; trypsin inhibitors
