The soybean (Glycine max) is a small, round East Asian legume — most often a pale creamy yellow, though black, green and brown seed types also exist — that has become one of the most important food and feed crops on Earth. Exceptionally rich in protein and oil, the mature dried bean is mild, faintly sweet and nutty, and is rarely eaten plain; instead it is transformed. Soaked, ground and strained it yields soy milk, which is set with a coagulant into tofu; fermented it becomes miso, soy sauce, tempeh and natto; pressed it gives soybean oil, the world's second most-produced vegetable oil; and dry-roasted it becomes crunchy soy nuts. The immature green pod, eaten as the snack edamame, is the same plant picked young. Behind the scenes the bean is also the backbone of modern animal feed and a major source of industrial lecithin and protein isolates, making it quietly present in a vast share of processed food.