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View Full Version : Made My Own Soy Milk/Tofu !



rvijay
October 20th, 2005, 09:07 AM
I made my own soy milk using a BLENDER and the recipe below. I
encourage all here to try making this. It is
quite easy. Now there is no need to purchase the soy milk maker.

http://www.ellenskitchen.com/faqs/tofumilk.html#oldsoy

I also drained the soy milk into another container. Took some of the
okara at the bottom, added a little bit of salt/pepper/curry powder
and am eating it. It tasted excellent and made great breakfast !! This
also helps to avoid the filtration step.

Tofu Recipe:
http://www.recipecottage.com/vegetarian/homemade-tofu01.html

This sounded easy, another easy path to explore !
Couldn't resist trying this:
Added a Tablespoon of White Vinegar to a cup of hot soy milk and
allowed it to cool. The curds did form, I allowed them to settle down,
filtered and then pressed the curds in the cheese cloth real dry and
then placed the lump on my plate ! Tasted it a bit ! Yes, I made my
OWN TOFU !

The trick when using soy milk is to use it in:
1. making coffee/tea
2. make flavored soy milk eg., strawberry flavored
3. use soy milk in other recipes that call for milk for eg.,
soup/baking etc.,

That way the bean taste is almost absent.

This is one of the most useful projects that I have ever attempted.
For a one dollar worth of soy beans, I can get $13 worth of soy milk
and okara approx. By the way, the soy beans were not even bought in
bulk, they were a small pack and most expensive. If I buy soybeans in
bulk then I can expect much better savings/returns. Wish I had started
doing this much, much earlier.

Wish I had tried this earlier. Now no more need to haul all that soy
milk in the winter. I can buy soy beans and store at home in advance,
then make my soy milk whenever I want !!

This also opens the door for me for a wide variety of soy milk related
products now to explore in the future.

Soy Milk Preservation Tips:

1. Soy milk can be frozen and stored in a freezer. One person I read somewhere makes soy banana milk shakes, pours them into ice trays, and once the cubes are done, takes them out and then freezes them in a separate container !!! This is a very novel idea. But when frozen this way I wonder if the cubes will all eventually become connected. The same idea can also be used to freeze freshly prepared soy milk. Whenever needed, simply take out one to three cubes and use !!

2. Soy beans can be SoAKED OVERNIGHT and then stored in the freezer. Whenever needed they can be thawed in about 30 minutes or so and used to make Soy Milk. Soon after using this batch, the same night soak a fresh batch and freeze it the next day. That way, one will never be short of soaked beans to make Soy Milk.

Here is a negative side effect of making Soy Milk:

1. Reduced sugar before to almost nil before. Yesterday I took 5 spoons in one day.
2. Also drank 4 cups of tea which is bad for kidney stones.

Need to watch it with Soy and use it in a healthy/frugal manner. Soy milk/soy products can also be misused/overused like anything else.

Vijay :pibo:

EDITED: For now I used regular soy beans. Down the road, if I get Organic I might use them.

FreshTart
October 20th, 2005, 01:09 PM
Nice :up:

I've been making my own almond milk.

Just remember that your homemade soy milk isn't fortified ;)

rvijay
October 20th, 2005, 01:13 PM
What are the key ingredients that are added to fortify soy milk ?

Thanks.

FreshTart
October 20th, 2005, 01:24 PM
Well, soy milk is fortified with B12, zinc, calicum, and D (perhaps more, but those are the big ones).

As long as you take a multivitamin or get your vitamins from other places, you still should be fine :)

rvijay
October 20th, 2005, 02:34 PM
Doesn't Soy Milk contain B12 on its own ? Besides the okra obtained in preparation can be eaten. This is expected to contain more B12.

Thanks.

FreshTart
October 20th, 2005, 02:48 PM
Okra and soy do not contain B12 on their own (unless you luck out). Neither does seaweed and organic foods. Basically, assume there is no B12 in those foods.

The only things that contain active B12 (always and consistently) are B12 vitamins, multivitamins, nutritional yeast, fortified veg meats/milks/cheeses, meat (which veg*ans don't eat), cheese and eggs (which LO veg's eat).

Satya
October 20th, 2005, 07:58 PM
Actually, I think they make a pre-packaged supplement that you can add to your homemade milks to make them "fortified". I can't remember where I've seen this though :-/ .

rvijay
October 20th, 2005, 08:18 PM
What does everyone here think about this ?
http://tinyurl.com/d27wb

FreshTart
October 20th, 2005, 08:51 PM
I also wonder about the North American vegetarian population who goes on about how the asians live off soy, esp tofu. I don't know a lot of asians, I admit, but those that I do know (including the chinese restaurant family my sister was friends with growing up) never ate tofu the way people here talk about it.

But having never been "over there", I can't say for certain.

karenM
October 21st, 2005, 03:00 AM
There are a LOT of Asians around here, and some of them must be eating quite a bit of soy products, because the Japanese and Korean and Chinese markets are FULL of soy. Not quite so much the Thai and Vietnamese markets.

The most popular item at the Chinese language school's yearly festival here is definitely the "stinky tofu" (chou tofu), which is fermented tofu cubes, served deep-fried. It's delicious! (This is a Mandarin language school, and most of the students in this area are Taiwanese). At dim sum restaurants (Mandarin and Cantonese) they always have fresh, soft, hot, homemade tofu that they serve topped with sweet ginger syrup and boiled peanuts.

Koreans season nearly everything with soy sauce or miso or kochujang (chili-miso paste), and that includes soybean sprouts and tofu! (mmmmm!)

A traditional Japanese breakfast usually includes (fermented soybean) miso soup, often with tofu in it. Lots of dishes are seasoned with soy sauce. Of course, 2nd and 3rd generations are more likely to eat frosted flakes or bagels for breakfast. :)

I'm sure it's the same with other immigrants. When meat and Western-style foods are easier to find, the traditional diets (including soy) get lost little by little. I'm third-generation Korean, but didn't really eat Korean food for most of my life, until an influx of new Korean immigrants to this area brought Korean markets to town and made ingredients a bit more accessible.

That being said... FreshTart, I'm sure you're correct about westerners over-estimating the amount of soy products being consumed on an everyday basis in Asia. Most Asians I know eat soy often, but no one makes a daily meal of tofu! More like veggies, tiny amounts of meat or fish, and LOTS OF RICE.

karenM
October 21st, 2005, 03:24 AM
What does everyone here think about this ?
http://tinyurl.com/d27wb
I think that Weston Price meant well, and most of his advice seems sensible enough, but I really have no plans to give up soy and start eating animal fat, meat or eggs, no matter how chock full of nutrients they are. :)

FreshTart
October 21st, 2005, 03:26 AM
There are a LOT of Asians around here, and some of them must be eating quite a bit of soy products, because the Japanese and Korean and Chinese markets are FULL of soy. Not quite so much the Thai and Vietnamese markets.


We have a lot of Chinese and Vietnamese here. There is a lot of tofu, but there is also a shocking amount of meat :lol: There is more meat at the chinese markets then there are in the "english" markets!!

karenM
October 21st, 2005, 03:33 AM
We have a lot of Chinese and Vietnamese here. There is a lot of tofu, but there is also a shocking amount of meat :lol: There is more meat at the chinese markets then there are in the "english" markets!!
<gulp> I know what you mean! Not only is the amount shocking, but the types of body parts being displayed is pretty freaky as well. yiiiiiiikes! :eek:

rvijay
October 21st, 2005, 01:20 PM
I eat mushrooms every week or every other week. So that should give me enough B12.

veganinohio
October 21st, 2005, 04:29 PM
I eat mushrooms every week or every other week. So that should give me enough B12.

Where are you getting your information? You are misinformed and are putting your health in danger if you are relying on soy or mushrooms for B12. It may be possible for those foods to carry trace amounts in some cases (perhaps by being unwashed, having come in contact with manure, etc.), but that is far from a reliable source (and anyway, unwashed vegetables that have come in contact with manure pose other health problems).

Officially, soy and mushrooms have ZERO B12. Look it up. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, uninformed, or trying to sell you something.

rvijay
October 22nd, 2005, 09:12 AM
Where are you getting your information? You are misinformed and are putting your health in danger if you are relying on soy or mushrooms for B12. It may be possible for those foods to carry trace amounts in some cases (perhaps by being unwashed, having come in contact with manure, etc.), but that is far from a reliable source (and anyway, unwashed vegetables that have come in contact with manure pose other health problems).

Officially, soy and mushrooms have ZERO B12. Look it up. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, uninformed, or trying to tell you something.

Can you please give any reliable source of information that
says mushrooms don't have B12 ?

Thanks.

Ludi
October 22nd, 2005, 09:27 AM
The USDA food database says 100 grams of raw mushrooms contain .04 mcg of B-12

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

Recommended daily allowance is 2 - 3 mcg. So mushrooms clearly don't contain enough.

KimberlyNYC
October 22nd, 2005, 09:28 AM
Can you please give any reliable source of information that
says mushrooms don't have B12 ?

Thanks.

http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/everyvegan/
http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/
http://www.vegfamily.com/dietician/0405c.htm

silverfire
October 24th, 2005, 08:40 AM
Mushrooms contain an analogue of B12 that is not bioavailable (ie. not able to be used by the body).

In fact, I believe that the analogue may inhibit the absorption of the bioavailable form.

veganinohio
October 25th, 2005, 11:45 AM
Can you please give any reliable source of information that
says mushrooms don't have B12 ?

Thanks.

That's a strange response. I want to know where you're getting your information. Why don't you give us a reliable source that says they do.

I really don't care, though, and now I'm sorry I even bothered to make the post.

Eat your soy and mushrooms and good luck with you.

rvijay
November 4th, 2005, 08:21 PM
http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/everyvegan/
http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/
http://www.vegfamily.com/dietician/0405c.htm

Thanks for all the info. in this thread. Wow ! I had no idea. Now, I will be looking for B12 supplements locally. Thanks everyone for all their responses in this thread.

I was not on here at all, so couldn't respond earlier.

Vijay

rvijay
November 8th, 2005, 01:26 PM
Thanks for all the tips/info. in this thread everyone. I went and got some MultiVitamins yesterday locally. Made sure there was B12 in them ! :)

FreshTart
November 8th, 2005, 06:16 PM
Don't stop making your own soy milk and tofu, though! :) Just keep taking your vitamins!

rvijay
November 9th, 2005, 02:45 PM
Don't stop making your own soy milk and tofu, though! :) Just keep taking your vitamins!

For sure, I will continue making my own Soy. :)