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re: tofu prices re: vegetarian frugality
9 jan 2000
michael black wrote:
>nick@ufo.ee.vill.edu (nick pine) wrote:
>>you can make 3 pounds of tofu from a pound of soybeans, 11 cents worth...
>there was a time when i did make tofu... quite messy, and it needs
>a lot of cleaning up. making more at one time wouldn't add a whole lot
>to the effort, but you then start dealing in large quantities of soy
>milk, and i was already using a fairly large pot.
i've considered using 55 gallon drums :-)
>...having made it myself, i don't particularly think tofu is overpriced.
i tend to agree, altho the soybean's value does increase 50:1, something
like wheat into bread or wool into sweaters. a continuous vs batch process
would help, something like a bread machine that begins with a hopper of dry
beans and some water. labor was cheaper and microcomputers didn't exist
3,000 years ago...
push a button to automatically soak the beans overnight, drain, add water,
grind, simmer 15 minutes to make milk, strain, simmer again, add coagulant,
stir, wait, strain, drain, press, and nice little cakes of tofu emerge, with
the water recycled and fiber converted to elemental carbon and hydrogen by
pure pyrolysis, which provides heat and electricity for the process via a
small fuel cell that also makes your electric meter run backwards, in a
small-scale version of the recently-patented mcmullen process.
the three tofu factories i visited in nyc all used batch processes, with
gas-fired kettles the size of 55 gallon drums and electric traveling beam
hoists to move them around.
nick
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