ABSTRACT
Soybean plant was first recorded at around 200 B.C. as a medicinal plant in China. Green vegetable soybean, known as Edamame, translated as beans on branches in Japanese, mao dou in Chinese, meaning hairy bean, and as sweet bean in the United States of America, is a nutritious and tasty vegetable or snack food with a sweet nutty flavour. Vegetable soybean is an excellent source of protein, fat, vitamin A, calcium, phosphorous, dietary fibre and phytoestrogens and a good source of total lipids, iron and energy. Vegetable soybean can be a good substitute for green peas or lima beans used in the preparation of various dishes in India. The presence of omega-3 fatty acid makes it special, as soybean is one of the very few plant sources containing this essential fatty acid. Vegetable soybean is an erect bushy annual having a taproot system with many adventitious roots, which consist of nodules on their surface, and they become extensive at maturity.
