Soy sauce during pregnancy - benefits and harms

Oriental cuisine is considered one of the most popular in the world. The massive demand for it is due to the unique combination of components, due to which the dishes have a unique taste. And an invariable addition to Japanese or Chinese dishes is soy sauce. It transforms the taste of food and makes it more saturated. Can pregnant women use soy sauce with food and how to choose it in stores?

Soy Sauce: Specific Features

Soy sauce appeared about two thousand years ago in one of the Chinese Buddhist temples. According to the canon, the monks could not eat meat and animal products. Therefore, the local chef was looking for ways to diversify a fairly fresh daily menu, consisting mainly of rice. Using soybeans, wheat, water and salt, he got a unique product, which we now call soy sauce. Gradually, the fashion for it spread throughout China, and today it is widely used in many world cuisines.

Making soy sauce is a multi-level and rather complicated process. First of all, pure soybeans need to be mixed with toasted wheat grains and soaked in salted water. All components are thoroughly mixed and stacked in deep vats, in which they are left to roam. The process can take from a month to several years. After the sauce is infused, it is filtered and bottled.

Soy sauce is used as marinades for meat and fish, salads are seasoned with them, and on some varieties you can even fry them. On sale you can find both a pure product, and with the addition of ginger, garlic and other spices.

Soy Sauce Composition

Let's try to figure out what soy sauce can be potentially useful for a pregnant woman:

1. The percentage of salt in soy sauce is only 6-8%, so it can be a safe alternative to pure salt.
2. Its calorie content is 69 kcal per 100 ml of product. This allows you to add it to food without fear of body fat.
3. Its antioxidants inhibit rapid aging and protect the mother's body from viral and bacterial infections. Antioxidant soy sauce surpasses classic lemon and blackcurrant more than 100 times.
4. In soy sauce (due to the technology of its preparation) live probiotic bacteria are formed that stabilize the intestines and help in the fight against constipation, which is considered one of the main problems of women in the situation.
5. Folic acid, recognized as the main pregnancy vitamin, enters the body along with seasoning. Its lack can negatively affect the central nervous system of the fetus, leading to all kinds of malformations.
6. Seasoning contains more than 20 essential amino acids responsible for the proper metabolism and assimilation of nutrients. Without them, it is impossible to build muscle tissue of the fetus and the development of the main organs and systems.
7. Soy sauce contains a high concentration of vitamin C, which is one of the pillars of healthy immunity.
8. Seasoning speeds up the metabolism. This allows a pregnant woman not to be afraid of weight gain, but rather get rid of extra pounds without reducing the nutritional value of food.

Potential harm

Natural soy sauce is an absolutely harmless product, which in small quantities (2 tablespoons per day) can be eaten by pregnant women. But finding it on supermarket shelves is very difficult.More than 90% of the options presented on sale are cheap analogues with a large number of preservatives and stabilizers. Since organic sauce must be infused in vivo for at least a year, manufacturers accelerate this process by adding fermentation protein to it. Such soy sauce is potentially dangerous for pregnant women, because it is “stuffed” with chemistry. There is no benefit from its use. Rather, the chance of food poisoning increases.

Due to the high sodium chloride content, daily use of soy sauce can provoke salt deposition. Also, if a woman suffers from chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, gastritis and irritation of the gastric mucosa, it is better to refuse this seasoning.

Terms of buying soy sauce

If you still bought a surrogate, then just one tasting is enough to understand that you have chemistry. The taste of artificial soy sauce is very pronounced, salty, after it can even bake a little in the mouth. The one made in the natural environment is completely different - tender, with a slight sourness or sweetness. And the color of a natural sauce is brown-red, transparent, in contrast to a sauce prepared under conditions of artificial fermentation, in which it is deep brown.

How to store soy sauce?

An open bottle is best stored in the refrigerator, which will prevent direct sunlight from entering it. It can be left in its original packaging, or it can be poured into a dispenser, the design of which will protect it from evaporation.

Natural soy sauce is a seasoning that goes well with almost any dish. A pregnant woman can add it to vegetable salads, mixing with olive oil, or pickling a bird in it. The components that make up the sauce have a positive effect on the body, without endangering the child.

Video: what will happen if you drink a lot of soy sauce