Tofu - good for the bones

It was encouraging to read about people making tofu in the blog. Here's some more about tofu that I read in the New York Times. Normally I would paste a link but you need a (free) subscription to read it and most people can't be bothered.

Prevention: A Little Tofu, for Those Middle-Aged Bones

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: September 20, 2005

Eating soy may help prevent bone fractures in postmenopausal women. A large study of more than 24,000 women suggests that soy protein is especially helpful to bone health in the first few years after a woman reaches menopause.

The subjects in the study, women 40 to 70, were participants in the Shanghai Women's Health Study who were followed for four and a half years. In this time, 1,770 fractures were reported.

The researchers adjusted the figures for age, osteoporosis risk factors, socioeconomic status and diet other than soy food. They found that the more soy a woman ate, the less likely she was to break a bone.

Within 10 years of menopause, high soy consumption was associated with a 50 percent reduction in the risk for bone fracture.

Dr. Xiao-Ou Shu, a co-author of the paper and a professor in the department of medicine at Vanderbilt, pointed out that the American Heart Association and the Food and Drug Administration recently recommended the consumption of 25 grams of soy protein each day as a heart disease preventive.

That would be more than enough to assure protection against fractures as well. "The consumption level of women who were in the top 20 percent in our study is equivalent to two cups of soy milk per day, or three-quarters of a piece of tofu," she said.

Although the amount of soy protein can vary among different brands, one cup of soy milk contains about 6.6 grams of soy protein, and a piece of tofu contains about 16 grams. "In my opinion," Dr. Shu said, "women should increase soy consumption."

Tofu making - the ins and outs

Had a funny experience tonight. Tetsuya was making tofu. He wanted to do it the old way starting from soaking the beans etc. OK, very well.

The beans were soaked from last night so he ground them and cooked them and made the soy milk. That was great. The soy milk doesn't taste like what you buy at a supermarket where oil and all other kinds of things are added. It tasted OK - well, like soy milk should.

But then came the problem.

To make tofu you have to add a coagulent to the soy milk. Modern manufacturers add chemicals but purists (like us) use nigari, a deep sea salt, Magnesium Chloride. When Tets added it it didn't work. Turns out it was out of date. So ... he added some more. Still no coagulation. So more.

Of course i didn't know that so I came in and tasted it. Well, I have not tasted many things as vile as that. It was horrid. Imagine soy milk mixed with a lot of sea water and you'll get close. Turns out the nigari had lost it's 'nigari-ness'.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board.

It just shows you that there is a lot of work behind the scenes to make a successful product and (fortunately) most people only see something after we have tried it out sometimes quite a few times. But the end result is worth it.

But it tasted vile. Watch this space :-)

Stand and Deliver

"So what's new?" everyone seems to ask.

Well, we've been robbed. Twice in about 10 days.

It's nasty when you get rolled. That insecure, almost violated feeling that leaves you with a sour feeling down in your stomache. But then that's not news to most of you. So what do you do?

You pick yourself up, fill in all the insurance forms (funny how they never pay out like you thought they would when you signed up for it) and revamp all your security measures, call in workmen to lay steel bear traps and get the security system upgraded.

We believe we have seen the last of them. They didn't get anything the last time, and they won't get anything in the future (we've seen to that) so we can get on with life and make new dishes and come up with various schemes to give the punters a good time when they come in.