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Season 13, Ep 29 - Soy Sauce

Season 13, Ep 29 - Soy Sauce
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The humble soy bean, arguably the most versatile legume there is. It’s used for everything, from tofu to car tyres but of course its probably best known for its sauce.

Tonight we’re putting three popular varieties to the test:
Highmark Soy Sauce$2.00 for 300ml
Woolworths Select Soy Sauce $3.46 for250ml
Kikkoman Soy Sauce $5.65 for 250ml


Soy sauce is incredibly popular; we use over two million litres of the stuff yearly. So what’s in it and how is it made?

Traditional soy sauce is made by combining soybeans, wheat, and water. Add a mould bug to get it fermenting then six months later filter it and boil it and you end up with a naturally brewed sauce like the Kikkoman brand.

The processed way to make it is to combine hydrolosized vegetable protein, made from soy. Add salt, water and colouring and sugar. Two of our brands, highmark and Woolworths select are made this way.

Chemically processed soy sauce has lead to some cases of contamination with cancer causing toxins.

A contaminant known as a chloropropanol was found in some brands of soy sauce around 10 years ago. MAF recently tested 189 samples and two were found to above the legal limit. But MAF says you would have to have 28.5 kilos of the contaminated sauce daily for it to be toxic and that’s a lot of soy sauce.

Can you really taste the difference between traditionally brewed and chemically processed?


All of the brands have high levels of salt with Woolworths having the most at 6,510 milligrams per 100 grams.

Salt per 100 g’s
Highmark 6140mg
Kikkoman 6458mg
Woolworths 6510mg

Serving size
Kikkoman 15 mL
Woolworths 20 mL
Highmark 30 mL

None of our brands suggested serving size is under the ministry of health’s recommended daily maximum intake of 920 milligrams.

Overall High Mark is our overall winner, congratulations HighMark!

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