Processed Soy = Evil

I always knew to think of processed soy products as evil, and here is one specific reason why: whole soybeans are bathed in the chemical solvent hexane to concentrate high-protein isolate. Usually, you can find soy-protein isolate in a lot of fake meats. But hexane is neurotoxic and, thus, "poses serious occupational hazards to workers, is an environmental air pollutant, and can contaminate food". Yes, it can be found on your soy food products if you don't buy organic. Luckily, in the US hexane is prohibited in organic products.

But the whole point of the article I read is that many of our 'organic' soybeans come from China, where organic oversight is so slack...

Process your own soy with mold, my friends. Let our microfloral allies do the work for us. Because mold ferments soybeans to make tempeh, it is actually more digestible than tofu.

Photo by Clearly Ambiguous

Fermenting Soybeans

I made my own tempeh again this past weekend! Since making it is a 2-3 day affair, it gave my weekend a nice rhythm.

Friday night: soak the soybeans
Upon waking Saturday morning: remove soybean skins + cut up the beans into smaller pieces
Saturday morning: cook the soybeans while making brunch
Saturday early afternoon: spread almost fully-cooked soybeans on baking sheet double lined with flat-woven towels to dry them
Saturday early evening: after mixing with some apple cider vinegar and powdered tempeh spores, spread the skin dry beans into baking dishes, then pop into oven with only the light on
Sunday morning: check to make sure some white mold is evident
Sunday late afternoon/early evening: remove tempeh from incubator when solid



Cut into pieces to be wrapped in plastic wrap to freeze for later consumption.


The first time I made tempeh, I had to incubate for 36 hours or so. And everything turned black! At least on the side that was exposed to the air.

Last night, I had my first taste from my second batch. It was more firm than my first batch, and I didn't cut the soybeans as much, so I could taste each individual bean. For the first time, I baked it in the oven and then added it to my Thai-ish whole-grain noodle dish, which I improvised with lots of caramelized onions, half a reconstituted ancho chile, some broccoli florets, one tomato, three mushrooms, soy sauce, peanut butter, homemade mango chutney with sesame oil drizzled on top. Delicious!

Homemade Vegan Yogurt?

I found a pretty good tasting soy 'yogurt' yesterday, and I am trying to duplicate it at home.

Usually soy yogurts are full of stabilizers and other such junk that I can't pronounce. For example, plain Silk soy yogurt in the US is made of: Organic soymilk (filtered water, whole organic soybeans), rice starch, dextrose, organic evaporated cane juice, tricalcium phosphate, natural flavors, cultured glucose syrup solids, pectin, locust bean gum, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), yogurt cultures (L. bulgaricus, S. thermophilus, L. acidophilus, B. bifidum, L. casei, L. rhamnosus).

But Sojade is just "soya drink (natural spring water, whole soya beans 8%), and selected live cultures of which Bifidus and Acidophilus". And the taste is pretty good! And since I have cultured milk with yogurt cultures successfully before by following directions for making Greek yogurt from Bean Sprouts, it can't be that hard to culture soy milk with soy yogurt cultures. Basically, boil soy milk, let it cool to body temperature, add the live cultures, put in thermos for a few hours while the bacteria get it on--then yogurt!

So we will see what happens after 8-14 hours...

EDITED: When I made the yogurt and wrote this post, I forgot about this thing called the internet. I googled a bit and found some soy yogurt resources from soy milk makers.

I found out some cool facts. Apparently, the bacteria produces lactic acid faster if you add sugar to the soy milk! And that I could buy live non-dairy acidophilus (the Solgar brand is vegan) to make soy yogurt...which means that I could use it to culture nut milk to make nut cheese. And acidolphilus breeds roughly between 100 - 105F (40 - 45C), a little warmer than tempeh culture.

Vegan Fast Food: Gyros

Viana produces lots of organic soy-based products. On their site are lots of recipesand even Viana TV cooking shows to show you how to prepare delicious food with their products.

In their veggie gyros, there is neither soy protein isolate nor GMO soy! Hooray! Just tofu, wheat protein, pure volcanic Eifel water, sunflower oil, soy sauce, spices, tomato paste, sea salt, roasted onions, carob powder, beetroot, celeriac, and mustard.

And it was delicious!