Not so much yarn made from food products (although soy silk is a byproduct of soy beans) but yarns made from plant sources. And remember that linen and cotton both come from plants.

Try The Knitting Closet for Southwest Trading Co yarns and prices. Phoenix (soy yarn) is on special at the moment - $11 for a 100g ball.

Southwest Trading has an introduction to soy silk at http://www.soysilk.com/about.html. Make sure you check out their site for descriptions of their yarns made from soy and other fibres.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.theknittingcloset.com/cat_soy.cfm

I've never heard of Soy yarns

Here's a link to a review of soy silk. I think there's a banana silk yarn too. Wonder if it's prone to being nibbled on by insects!

Here is a link that might be useful: Soy silk review

I would think plant or animal based yarns would suffer from some kind of insect attack, just like wool. I just saw the brief news report, and the source of the fiber was from products we think of as food sources. Using the plant's fiber makes sense. There was no discussion of how the yarn was made or from what part of the source.

Southwest Trading gives a brief description of how soy silk is made.

And try http://www.yarntraders.co.nz/bananayarninfo.asp
for info on Banana Silk. While you're there have a look at some of the other luscious yarns they sell.

Don't forget that normal silk has been spat out by a caterpillar.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.soysilk.com/about.html

I've got a wool/soy blend from Patons (made in China) -- it's 70/30 wool/soy, so feels more like wool. Somewhere between sock and DK weight. Makes great socks (I use bamboo DPs, re another thread; I'm a slow knitter and likely to drop stitches with metal DPs, and socks take long enough!). Soy yarn is 100% recycled from tofu waste, of all things, then mixed with (I don't know what!) and "extruded" from a machine into the ribbon type of soy yarn. You can also get "rovings" sort of stuff and spin your own, if you like that kind of thing. Allegedly it spins like dupioni (sp?)silk. I don't do much spinning, and am sticking to the cheapest wool I can find for that. But I'm interested in soy yarn options!

I have been using soy yarn for everything lately. It is so soft and strong....lovely for those close to the body items. It looks like silk, lasts like cotton!