Soybean Meal

Soybean meal is produced from the residue left after oil extraction. (Removal of the oil, which is used mostly in food, but also for industrial oils, soaps and biodiesel, involves crushing and either pressing or solvent extraction.), about 98 percent of soybean meal is used as animal feed. Some, but not all, soybean meal contains ground soybean hulls.

Soybean meal is heat-treated during production, to denature the trypsin inhibitors of soybeans, which would otherwise interfere with protein digestion.

This animal feed is often recommended for use in starter rations when creep feeding lambs. It has been estimated that, of soy meal fed to animals in the US, 48 percent is fed to poultry, 26 percent to swine, 12 percent to beef cattle, 9 percent to dairy cattle, 3 percent is used in fish feed and about 2 percent in pet food