There’s a really good, though long, article on nutrition (as opposed to “nutritionism”) by Michael Pollan in the New York Times right now. I’ve started making an effort to give up junk food, so it’s convenient timing.
One question I’ve always had for vegetarians/health food types: I read all this stuff about how processed food is bad for you. Indeed, the article distinguishes between “food” and “edible foodlike substances,” saying you should only eat the former, if possible.
Where does tofu fall into this?
I mean, it seems like most of the meat and dairy substitutes out there are processed to hell. They’d have to be, to be goaded into resembling chicken/cheese/whatever instead of soybeans, wheat, and rice. Is it really that much of an improvement to eat margarine and veggie burgers instead of milk and Lunchables?
Just curious.
tofu and most meat alternatives are not healthy at all.
neither is margarine.
i currently follow the weston price recommendations.
native common sense.
Margarine’s not healthy – it’s actually in the league of heavily-processed things, and it has a lot of hydrogenated oils to show for it.
I don’t know about the health status of tofu, but I know there are some negative politics behind it because a lot of soybeans are grown in rainforest that’s been slashed and burned.
In terms of processing, it goes like this: dry tofu beans, then soak them, grind them, and boil them until you get the milk. Then coagulate the milk by boiling it and adding some kind of salt, usually gypsum or nigari, as it cools. You should have a chunk of matter at the end of that. Nothing TOO bad, but there is still plenty of room for the nutritional value of the soy to be affected.
Veggie burgers can be not-that-processed or incredibly processed, depending on the brand you buy, but as far as I know there is always some amount of food-like-substance within them. They expect the burgers will be frozen for a while, and preserving flavor pretty much requires a certain amount of food-like-substance. It’s possible to make one’s own lentil burgers and things like that from scratch pretty easily, though.
Personally, I say that’s not worth the effort when portabello mushrooms make such great burgers anyway.