FORUMS > Recipes Forum Rules

Hi all--

Relatively new to this site and found this forum so I thought I'd ask fellow tofu-lover like me to share their favorite preps for it. When I'm dropping weight, it's a staple of my diet and though I'm pretty creative, I'd love to expand my repetoire to avoid boredom.

I have to watch my sodium intake (vertigo), so would be especially interested in lower-sodium variations. (And lower fat is a given...)

Have been able to find marinated/flavored brands where the sodium isn't too bad, but also would love to hear what people do with it just plain and fresh.

I don't find the need to marinate tofu -- tofu will absorb and take up all the spices/flavoring that will added into your cooking. No need to marinate tofu .... as far as I know, growing Asian, my mum don't marinate tofu ....

Black bean tofu is amazing! or Mah Po Tofu -- u can get it in chinese restaurants or homemade .. easy recipe.

Stuff tofu cantonese style is amazing!

good luck..


cheers

Soy products are not good for men. Soy acts like estrogen in the male body. Very bad.

Sparkycat saidSoy products are not good for men. Soy acts like estrogen in the male body. Very bad.

Are you a spokeperson for peanut farmers? LOL

I will always love my tofu and so does the rest of tofu eating nation (i.e. Asian countries)

So difficult to get good tofu ... fresh piping hot tofu ....

Sparkycat saidSoy products are not good for men. Soy acts like estrogen in the male body. Very bad.

Just look at Asia, where soy consumption is highest. All the men are dead!!!

Moving back to reality. Here are my two favorite tofu recipes, both from Cooking Light. The first is vegetarian and the other has pork. I substitute turkey for the pork though.

Tofu Fried Rice
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=689956

Ma Po Tofu
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1011234

There's a gazillion ways to curry tofu and I like curry so much that I don't have a favorite, just always use and squeeze the water out of super firm tofu for the best result. Now I'm reconsidering the steak on the grill.

Sparkycat saidSoy products are not good for men. Soy acts like estrogen in the male body. Very bad.

ROFLMAO! Send those unbiased, empirically based studies along when you get a hold of them, OK? Meanwhile, I requested recipes...

Sparkycat saidSoy products are not good for men. Soy acts like estrogen in the male body. Very bad.

Not true.

I do a simple dish (I have a ton of recipes for it), but my fav is:

Firm tofu, pressed for more water.

Salt pepper both sides and sautee each side in a pan with some soy sauce until it gets nice and crispy on the outside.

Fill a whole wheat tortilla with humus, sliced carrots, spinach, and sliced tofu. I have fed this to a large crowd and haven't gotten a complaint. The simplicity is what is key. People always shit talk tofu, but it really is just plain ol' good.

That thin-sliced, salt-and-pepper, sautee-till-crispy prep is great! I dropped out the soy sauce, to lower the sodium, used a ton of fresh-cracked pepper, and used a non-stick pan till the slices were as crispy as chips--YUM! It's good to get some protein in the morning... and all that pepper definitely wakes up the taste buds!

Sparkycat's claim isn't too off base..

http://bit.ly/DD5Uj

Summary.. Eat tofu in moderation. If tofu is your only protein source, then all your hard work in the gym is going to waste.

Chavarro's team found that men who ate the most soy had 41 million fewer sperm per milliliter of semen compared with men who did not eat soy foods. Normal sperm counts range between 80 million and 120 million per milliliter, according to a press release from the journal, a monthly publication of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology.

In addition, the researchers found that the link between soy and sperm concentration was stronger among overweight and obese men. Overweight and obese men produce more estrogen than thinner men, and soy may increase those estrogen levels even further, they speculated.

Moreover, the link between soy and sperm concentration was strongest in men with higher sperm concentrations. Men who have normal or high sperm counts may be more susceptible to soy foods than men with low sperm counts, Chavarro said.

.. Back to recipe discussion.

xrichx saidSparkycat's claim isn't too off base..

First off, you left out a key part of that article:

"It's not time to worry about whether you're eating too much soy. There's not enough information to conclusively say that. "

Secondly the article is about fertility and nothing to do with muscle growth. So you claim about eating soy based protein offsetting gym work is also baseless.

The funniest part of all the anti soy hysteria is based on the fact that soy contains phytoestrogens. When people like sparkycat say "Soy acts like estrogen" they are talking about phytoestrogens. The problem here is that if phytoestrogens acted like estrogen we would all be fairly screwed as phytoestrogens are in 100% of plant matter and is not limited to soy.

Once again.. Everything in moderation.

xrichx saidOnce again.. Everything in moderation.

No arguments against moderation, but peddling the sam tired myths has nothing to do with moderation.

I love tofu and soy products but because it mimics estrogen in both men and women I avoid it now. There have been studies that have linked soy consumption with breast cancer in women.

Now some of you will point out that Asians living in their native homeland don't seem to have the hormonal based cancers and other problems like Americans do. I am no expert but perhaps it's a combination of adopting their estrogen mimicking soy products that don't do well with what we normally consume which tends to be wheat and dairy based.

I was getting a tenderness under the nipples as of late and I wasn't sure what this was from. I finally pinpointed this problem to soy protein that was in my protein powder. I made the mistake of assuming it was entirely whey based but I was wrong. Since soy mimics estrogen in the body the receptor sites under my nipples were being activated and when this condition gets out of hand it can develop into gynecomastia. This is a benign yet unsightly enlargement of the tissue under the nipples. You've seen guys with this before in the past. Usually heavy set men have this problem frequently as do heavy steroid users. I'm no longer a steroid user myself (2 years) but because I was treated with radiation and chemo around the pelvis my own natural testosterone production may have been hindered. And adding estrogen mimicking foods like soy to my diet was causing a problem, and it didn't before in the past.

hi

there are a few favourites here i'd like to share:

1. cold tofu, preferably organic and fresh from the fridge. the type that's white all over and very jiggly

cut into desired sizes and all you do is pour this awesome sesame mustard sauce you should be able to find from most japanese grocers and it's a great snack. takes no time at all and great snack when you are in a hurry.

2. fried tofu, the type with a hardened slightly wrinkled skin and soft on the inside. i don't know if there are food shops in the states that sell these products outright, but here in singapore you can find them everywhere. the chinese name is 豆腐干

you could either steam or bake the tofu. again cut into desired consumption sizes. mix in sliced cherry tomatoes, a handful of spinich leaves and a citrus vinigrette with sesame seeds.

Everytime I think of tofu; i think of this sitcom episode

When you live in the SF Bay Area, you get used to a level of ethnic and culinary diversity and avdenturousness that, I guess, is sadly lacking elsewhere. Much of the anti-soy stuff seems almost racist to me, based on the idea that it is some kind of "foreign" food that will have harmful effects if ingested by European Americans. Puh-leeze! And because certain people develop a soy sensitivity, particular after some severe medical conditions, doesn't prove anything more about soy itself than someone's gluten, peanut or shellfish allergy does about those substances and foods.

I've been eating tofu as part of a balanced diet of protein sources for over 30 years, have yet to grow breasts, and if I'm overweight, believe me, it's because of too many brownies and too little cardio, not because of 8 oz. of tofu twice a week. Can we use our heads around here?

hiyayakko

cold silken tofu, grated ginger and sliced spring onions, with a little soy sauce/sesame oil concoction, and perhaps some bonito flakes. perfect appetizer

for the more adventurous westerner,


you can try it with century eggs. love!